25 replies to this topic

[Jazzman]

Is there a good place in TJ to get a coffee? Not talking about Sanborn's or even D'Volada. I'm a coffee roaster, have owned/operated coffee shops and am spoiled. :wink:

[Chiquito]

French Pastry store has ok coffee, north side of 7th just west of Revo. I like the dark stuff from Chiapas, haven't found any as good as the stuff I actually bought in Chiapas though.

[George Costanza]

Soko near the Otay border buys their beans from veracruz and is pretty good. Not too bold and no bad after taste. French Pastry store is good and also has great pastries to boot

[drchoi]

try new starbucks in tj..

[TJDave]

There's a coffee shop in Plaza Rio right near the regular Cinepolis (across from the downstairs ticket booth)

Sorry I can't remember their name (something like Cafe Rio)

But they make a good espresso... they have a La Marzocco espresso machine like Starbucks used to use when they were decent...

[zunigan]

Starbucks? I must have missed that one. Where is it? Also I heard they were opening a Taco bell? The food may not be so great but my grandson loves it. Anybody know where it might be?

[drchoi]

so far only taco bell in mexico is in mexico city

i been told the new star bucks are fiananced by carl slim and its near plaza rio..

[galvezis]

New Starbucks opening soon in playas in the calimax shopping center

[TJDave]

The Starbuck's in Zona Rio is located where the old Pizza Hut used to be... On Paseo de los Heroes one glorietta passed the Camino Real hotel... on the Northeast corner... (Av. Diego Rivera on the map below)

http://maps.google.c...&...c=addr&om=1

[Pieancho]

Anyone tried this place with the catchy name? I Mexico 1/2 naranja means your better half or spouse or girlfriend. Maybe a nice place to met someone who could be your 1/2 of the orange.

[Miggiesmallz- TEXMEX]

There are two new ones opening up, the one galvezis mentioned in Playas and another on Avenida Aguas Caliente.... next thing you know they'll be opening one up in El Florido and La Presa ...

LA TIMES ARTICLE
Starbucks goes to Tijuana, finally


A Starbucks opening abroad is usually a reliable cue to repeat the "globalization = Americanization" mantra. There are, after all, 12,000 of them, from Chonburi, Thailand, to Ankara, Turkey -- and that's just as of this morning. Starbucks' barista-speak -- you know the drill, "tall-grande-venti, skim-soy-whole" -- is on its way to being the latest Esperanto.

But the most recent latte-fication of the world unravels a more complicated story. On Friday, Starbucks opened the first of four planned stores in Tijuana, the sprawling border metropolis that is "abroad" only because of a line drawn in the California dirt at the end of the Mexican-American War. To bemoan the Starbucks invasion as more Yankee imperialism only goes so far in a city with Yankee imperialism in its DNA.

Tijuana grew up in the 1920s, just beyond the reach of U.S. Prohibition laws, and was rushed into modernization by the California "border barons" who bankrolled the city's pleasure palaces -- booze and vice outposts like the Agua Caliente Casino, meant not for local Mexicans but for gringos who crossed the border to do all the naughty things they couldn't do at home. The origin of Tijuana's mala fama, its bad rep as a city of sin, has nothing to do with its Mexicanness and everything to do with its Americanness.

Unlike other Mexican cities where Starbucks has outposts (Puebla, Toluca and even Mexico City), the presence of U.S. culture in Tijuana is nothing new. TVs and radios pick up English-language broadcasts from San Diego, and it's not tourists shopping at the local Home Depot and Wal-Mart. Indeed, the first Tijuana Starbucks is housed in a former Pizza Hut, right in front of a statue of beloved hero of Mexican independence, José María Morelos y Pavón. It's a prime corner in the bustling Zona Rio commercial district, across the street from the massive luxury gym Sports World ($120 a month), where the coffee chain's opening was the buzz of treadmills and Pilates classes all last week.

So why are so many Tijuana locals riled up about Starbucks? Because in typical Tijuana style, the city already beat Starbucks at its own game. D'Volada, founded by a Tijuana family in 2000, started as a direct copy of the Starbucks formula. It now has 64 stores in Mexico and, in a move of reverse globalization, two across the border in San Ysidro and Chula Vista. (An L.A. store is allegedly in the works.) Few thought Starbucks would bother with Tijuana because D'Volada was already, in essence, a Mexicanized Starbucks, serving $1 coffee and using milder beans.

So part of the sadness of Starbucks Tijuana is the threat it poses to D'Volada, a "glocal" success story now tightly woven into Tijuana's urban fabric. Even worse, D'Volada shops are franchised by a family-run company; the Starbucks outlets in Mexico are part of the empire of Carlos Slim, the telecom tycoon and rival to Bill Gates for the "richest man in the world" crown.

But where D'Volada appealed to the average Tijuanense who was willing to spring for more than home-watered Nescafe, Starbucks -- with its slightly higher prices and its internationalist cache -- is already proving to be a magnet for the city's blinged-out upper crust. Starbucks also arrives just as construction moves ahead on two expensive high-rise compounds, New City and Green View Tower, that promise security walls and tennis courts and, above all, social status -- projects that are attempting to redefine the city. On the new Tijuana Starbucks mug are artsy shots of the old Agua Caliente Casino tower, the huge spherical cultural center and the gleaming twin towers of the executive-class Grand Hotel. The city should hire Starbucks to do its marketing: "Tijuana: home to a glamorous Hollywood past, a trendy cultural present and a future of global finance."

This virtual Tijuana was in full effect at Starbucks' VIP opening party on Thursday. Servers offered up coffee cake on trays as if it were an amuse bouche; perfume-soaked society ladies gripped Frappuccino shots flavored with Mexican cajeta; and diplomats from the French consulate nibbled chipotle-tinged paninis. Even the outgoing mayor made his way through the klieg lights for a photo-op and some chai de canela.

As the night ended, the fleet of valet parking attendants emptied a tray of iced vanilla lattes. One of them quipped, "Que D'Volada ni que nada, no?" "Forget about D'Volada, right?" And just like that, an inevitable coffee future arrived where nobody ever thought it would.

Josh Kun is a professor in USC's Annenberg School for Communication.

[Miggiesmallz- TEXMEX]

Tijuana newspaper La Frontera recently asked readers which coffee shop they would choose: 42.3 percent said D'Volada versus 19 percent for Starbucks. The remainder were undecided in the Internet poll.

[Scooby]

Give me a Pete's Coffee for us "peteniks".

[gamaral]

After trying out most of the places in Tijuana including the new Starbucks branches ( rant bellow ) I found a great place called "La Factoria de Cafe" or something like that in Zona Rio, they are new so they can still screw up like everybody else.

Starbucks in Tijuana: They have bad cheap coffee, they have crappy techno like music, they are filled with coffee shop posers, the employees couldn't make a descent cappuccino of their life depended on it and they have a crappy colonial decor mixed with the original franchise decor.. EWWW. and I thought D'Volada was bad. ( it still is )

[BajaGringo]

I know you're new here but don't be bashful - tell us what you really think...

[TJDave]

Coffee is a subject people can get really passionate about...

That rant was somewhat tame, IMHO...

[Chiquito]

The more one drinks, the more animated one gets on the subject.
Odd.

[George Costanza]

the Starbucks in TJ has a cinnamon coffee which I haven't seen elsewhere in a starbux. Anyone try it before?

gamaral please don't sugarcoat anything

[tijuanalunchbunch]

There were a couple of places out near the Twin Towers. One a small house on Directa (Cafe de Sol???). Another in a small plaza across from the Towers, was there once years ago and they had imported beans when it was near impossible to get them.


jim

[Chiquito]

Before the d'Voladas and Starbucks et al moved in there was the French Pastry on North side of 7th between Revolucion and Constitucion. Decent selection of coffee, I'll be there at noon today.