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All right, let's say you want coffee in a coffee shop, that's 60 cents (at the time of this writing). But at Starbucks, if it's Cafe Latte: $3.50. Cafe Creamier: $4.50. Caffe Suisse: $9.50. For each French word it's another four dollars. Why does a little cream in coffee make it worth $3.50?

Go into any coffee shop and they'll give you all the cream you want until you're blue in the face. Forty million people are walking around in coffee shops with jars of cream: "Here's all the cream you want." And it's still 60 cents. And you know why it's 60 cents? Because it's called "coffee."

You want cinnamon in your coffee? Ask for cinnamon in a coffee shop and they'll give you all the cinnamon you want. Do they ask you for more money because it's cinnamon? It's the same price for cinnamon in your coffee as for coffee without cinnamon - 60 cents, that's it.

But not in Starbucks. Oh no, over there, it's Cinnamonnier - $9.50. You want a refill in a regular coffee shop and they'll give you all the refills you want until you drop dead. You can come in when you're 27 and keep drinking coffee until you're 98. And they'll start begging you: "Here, you want more coffee, you want more, you want more?"

Do you know that you can't get a refill at Starbucks? A refill is a dollar fifty and two refills is $4.50. Three refills, $19.50 ... so, for four cups of coffee you're paying $35.00. That's what you're paying it's burnt coffee. It's burnt coffee at Starbucks, let's be honest about it. If you get burnt coffee in a coffee shop, you call a cop and say, "It's the bottom of the pot. I don't drink from the bottom of the pot. But when it's burnt at Starbucks, they say, "Oh, it's a blend, it's a special bean from Argentina....." Want the truth; the bean is in your head.

And there're no chairs in those Starbucks; instead, they have these high stools. Did you ever see these stools? You haven't been on a chair that high since you were two years old. Seventy-six year old Jews are climbing and climbing to get to the top of the chair. And when they get to the top, they can't even drink the coffee because there are 12 people around one little table, and everybody's saying, "Excuse me, excuse me, excuse me, excuse me....." Then they can't get off the chair. Old Jews are begging Gentiles, "Mister, could you get me off this chair?"

Do you remember what a cafeteria was? In poor neighborhoods all over this country, they went to a cafeteria because there were no waiters and no service. And so poor people could save money on a tip. Cafeterias didn't have regular tables or chairs either. They gave coffee to you in a cardboard cup. So because of that you paid less for the coffee. You got less, so you paid less.

That's the way it is in Starbucks - no chairs, no service, a cardboard cup for your coffee - except in Starbucks, the less you get, the more it costs. By the time they give you nothing, it's worth four times as much as the nothing you get in a cafeteria.

Am I exaggerating? Did you ever try to buy a cookie in Starbucks? Buy a cookie in a regular coffee shop; it's huge and you can tear down a building with that cookie. And the whole cookie is 60 cents. At Starbucks, you'll need a magnifying glass to see it, or you're going to have to hire a detective to find it, and it's $9.50. And you can't put butter on it because they want extra for the butter. Did you know that if you buy a bagel, you pay extra for cream cheese in Starbucks?

Cream cheese is another 60 Cents. A knife to put it on, that's 32 cents. If it's long enough to reach the bagel, that's 48 cents. Add up everything and that bagel will eventually cost you $312. And they don't give you the butter or the cream cheese. No, they tell you where it is. "Oh, you want butter? It's over there. Cream cheese? Over here. Sugar? Sugar is there next to the napkins." Now you become your own waiter. You walk around with a tray. "I'll take the cookie. Where's the butter? The butter's here. Where's the cream cheese?

The cream cheese is there." You walked around for an hour and a half selecting items, and then the guy at the cash register has a glass in front of him that says "Tips."

If that's not chutzpah, what is! Here you are, waiting on your own table for an hour, and you owe him money? And then there's a sign that says please clean it up when you're finished.

It's not just that they don't give you a waiter or a busboy; now you've become the janitor. Now you have to start cleaning up the place. Old Jews are walking around cleaning up Starbucks. "Oh, here's another tabe with dirt. Wait, I'll clean this up too." They clean up the place for an hour and a half.

If I said to you, "I have a great idea for a business. I'll open a whole new type of a coffee shop. A whole new type. Instead of 60 cents for coffee I'll charge $2.50, $3.50, $4.50, and $5.50. Not only that, I'll have no tables, no chairs, no water, no busboy, and you'll clean it up for 20 minutes after you're finished." Would you say to me, "That's the greatest idea for a business I ever heard? We can open a chain of these all over the world." No, you would put me right into a sanitarium.

Starbucks can only get away with it because they have French titles for everything, bastard sons-of-a-bitches. And I say this with the highest respect, because you know, loshon hora, I don't like to talk about people.