An example idea: Taking on Starbucks

This story is based on a real Cafe here in Munich and the Starbucks next door. It’s nearly all true, the rest is fiction and stuff I believe.
Once upon a time there was a Cafe called “Platzhirsch”. It was a little Cafe in Munich and overlooked a marketplace that smelled of herbs, olives and freshly baked bread. It was, oddly enough on the first floor and could either be entered by using the stairs or a convenient elevator. It had had a chequered past, and had at one point closed until a young man, whose mother had used to go there decided to open it again. He decided not to change much about the old place and when the doors opened again it still smelt of books coffee and old ladies.

In the mornings elderly ladies and gentlemen would come in and gossip about this and that, drink coffee, eat cake and look out of the window, down upon the marketplace. During lunch office people would come in, gossip about this and that, drink coffee, eat cake and look out of the window, down upon the marketplace. During the afternoons young mothers would come in with their children and gossip about this and that, drink coffee, buy cake for their children and look out of the window, down upon the market place. In the evenings young people would come in, drink bottled beer, gossip about this and that, get excited about the evening to come and on summer evening watch the market stalls close. He sold coffee and cake and bottled beer and everyone was happy.

And then one day Starbucks opened twenty meters away.

At first the young man was afraid for he felt that all was lost and people would drink coffee, eat cake, gossip about this and that and look out of the window at Starbucks. He thought that he was doomed. That he must close. That he would not see these people again. But it was not to be. Every morning came his ladies and gentlemen, every lunch time the office workers, every afternoon his mothers with their kids and every evening he sold bottled beer to young people excited about the evening before them. In fact, he had more customers than ever.

So he decided to go and have a look at Starbucks.

When he came back he decided to do a very simple thing. In every town where he could find a Starbucks he would open a Cafe. He would find out the name of an old Cafe come and gone and open it again twenty meters from a Starbucks. He would try and make it like the old Cafe that had come and gone but it would not look like any other Cafe that he owned. He would not brand it, would not have cups with logos on, and there would not be coffee to go. There would be no WiFi, no uniforms and each Cafe would be true to the community within which it was located. People would grow up with each other, fall in love with each other, propose to each other, gossip with each other and grow old with each other in his Cafe’s. Each Cafe would be about the people in them and not about the Cafe itself.

The ladies and gentlemen in the mornings, the office workers at lunch time, the mothers with their kids in the afternoon, and the excited youngsters in the evenings would own the Cafe and not the other way round.

That’s what I would do, if I wanted to take on Starbucks.