I have this conversation with my wife. Her reply is that Starbucks has better ordering infrastructure where she doesn’t have to get out of the car when she has the kids. I get that.

I live in Hawai’i. We have locally grown coffee. We have chains that sell said locally grown coffee, located in malls. And you STILL see people lined up at the Starbucks. Branding is a powerful thing. Notice that people who get Starbucks will say “I need a Starbucks” and not “I need a coffee.” They’ve become conditioned to look for that green and that logo.