El Cafetel Americano

Thank god for American companies... According to this Sunday El Pais article, you can't smoke in the Starbucks here in Spain! WOOOHOO!

It says it's been open since April 12, so I guess we'll have to go check it out. It also says that they're going to try to open 25 restaurants here in Spain by 2004 and include "drive-thrus" (how American). They're going to be all owned by Starbucks and be integrated into restaurants like Vips, not franchised to locals. My wife was a little annoyed at this... I have no idea how they operate in the U.S. but it seems to me that Starbucks will take a while (if ever) to catch on here, so they'll need deep pockets to start.

The question still remains: Will the have fresh muffins?

-Russ