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"Clowns Cafe Vs Starbucks, Cambridge"

A review of Clowns Cafe by Jason - Saturday 10th of May 2003

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Let's spend a couple of minutes comparing Clowns to Starbucks.

Starbucks always has a long queues. On a weekend at the Starbucks cafe on the 2nd floor of Borders, you can expect to wait for 10-15 minutes before you are served. In Clowns I have never had to wait more than two or three minutes.

When you finally get served at Starbucks, a stressed out overworked short-term employee serves you, and quite frankly doesn't give a damn about you or your cup of coffee. Don't expect any smiles - you can tell they don't like their job, probably because the cafe is understaffed and they are rushed off their feet.

Clowns is a different story. Most of the staff have been there for many years, and you can tell they enjoy the job and working with each other. They are polite and give a warm welcome.

Food: Both Starbucks and Clowns offer delicious side cakes and biscuits. But it comes to savoury food, Clowns is the winner. While Starbucks offers a range of sandwiches and rolls, typically costing double the price they do anywhere else, Clowns has a whole menu of fresh pasta dishes, pizza, quiche etc at reasonable prices.

Check-out time: In Starbucks, your coffee and cake will cost you approximately double what it would in Clowns (or most other coffee shops in Cambridge).

Atmosphere: Both places have a pleasant atmosphere but are very different. Starbucks is considerably more spacious in feel and appearance than Clowns. But it is often over-crowded, and sometimes you have to stand around waiting for a seat.

Appearancewise, Starbucks is clean, elegant and modern. They are of course appealing to materialistic, fast-lane pretentious yuppy fools.

Clowns has more character and has a pleasant playful atmosphere. Its 'clown' theme works well, and the dozens of colourful clown pictures liven up otherwise fairly dark but cosy rooms. There are two floors in Clowns, the upstairs perhaps non-smoking - I'm not sure about that.

To conclude, I will say that the otherwise pleasant surroundings and coffee in Starbucks are spoiled by the very long queues (last thing you want when you've been shopping and want a coffee break), the lack of smiles and the bad-value prices. However I thoroughly recommend Clowns as Cambridge's top coffee shop.

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