This Starbucks was quite good and the young staff were friendly.
So why choose Starbucks in the midst of a plethora of independents.
Well it's for the same chief reason as picking Mc D when in Spain, Portugal, France even, and especially, in Egypt - filtered water.
Most independents in France, Spain and Portugal just take mains water from the local supply so the coffee just won't taste as great as it should.
When we were in Egypt the water in Starbucks was very well filtered and had to be purified; the milk was from camels so high fat that meant their coffees were quite silky smooth.
I deviate; a friend of mine held a University Chair in Water.
He specialised in researching ultra pure water, particularly for computer technology but Coca Cola is big into purifying water and were interested in his research work.
He said the biggest contamination risk wasn't the gizillions of bugs in water but those that lived on the surface (gizillions again) that died and fell in causing impurities.
Anyway what I wanted to say was that he said there was about the same amount of water on Earth today as there was a few billion years ago, with the key differences being where it is on the planet and how it is stored between frozen and not.
Now another reason that applies to Starbucks is, believe or not, the coffee.
They serve up arabica coffee, the quality expensive coffee bean whilst many independents and Mc D serve cheaper robusta coffee so when you nab a coffee for a euro particularly the independents that's likely robusta. There ain't no cheap arabica.
Then there's often reliable free WiFi but I've begun to notice that more and more Starbucks don't have sufficiently good functioning WiFi.
The last three reasons - air con (essential for folks like us not used to hot sun) usually good, clean, comfortable toilets but this one wasn't as good as it should have been, a floor wash was needed and customers shouldn't have to go in search of staff for toilet tissue as happened here.
So I've a tip for fellow travellers - always take a few sheets of toilet tissue with you out and about and especially Egypt where antiseptic hand sanitizer is also a must.
Here's another if buying bottled water. Turn bottle upside down before you buy. If water leaks out they filled it themselves.
Lastly, away from deviations, the independents keep Starbucks competitive for coffee & food deals. Here again you can be sure that the food, just like the coffee, will be toward quality standard rather than bucket shop grub. read more