Dueling Starbucks

Kansas City is now a little more cosmopolitan: A new Starbucks opened recently in ridiculously close proximity to an existing Starbucks.

Coffees with Italian names are now being served inside H&R Block’s world headquarters in downtown Kansas City, Missouri. The new Starbucks is on the 13th Street side of the building — a short walk (two minutes, 40 seconds) from the Starbucks at 12th Street and Main, inside City Center Square.

In some corners of the world, such as Manhattan, it’s not uncommon to see a Starbucks across the street from another Starbucks. Comedian Lewis Black used to do a bit about dueling Starbucks stores appealing to Alzheimer’s patients: “It has to be a group that can sit there and drink coffee and then get up, walk to the door [and say], ‘Do you see what I see? Son of a bitch, it’s a Starbucks. I think it’s time we had a cup of joe.'”

The company says on-top-of-each-other locations cut down lines. Starbuckses that can be traversed on foot before the song on your iPod changes are nothing new. But it’s a first in Kansas City. Sniff! She’s growing up!

The dense caffeination of downtown continues next spring. The local roaster LattéLand will lease space inside the Power & Light Entertainment District, in a building opposite the City Center Square Starbucks. LattéLand will share a block with the Cosentino’s food market; a dry cleaner; and other merchants. “It’s going to be kind of like the downtown resident-use block,” LattéLand owner Ed Schultz says.

Schultz says he isn’t afraid to be surrounded by Seattle. One of his stores on the Country Club Plaza, after all, is 350 feet from a Starbucks.