Brooklyn Coffee Shop Challenges Starbucks to Street-Cleaning Duel

Photos courtesy of Esther Bell.

Williamsburg coffee shop The West, located down the block from the Starbucks on Union Avenue, is challenging Starbucks to a trash pickup contest — in response to what shop owner Esther Bell calls “a huge accumulation of Starbucks garbage“ in the area.

Ever since the Seattle coffee chain opened a Williamsburg location, she said, “sometimes it just feels like we’re stepping on Starbucks carcasses.”

The waste — mainly in the form of Tall, Grande, Venti and Trenta cups, printed with the Starbucks logo — builds up in the streets, sidewalks and gutters of Union Avenue, Bell said.

So The West, named after famous Williamsburg resident May West, is taking a positive-reinforcement approach.

Beginning on Wednesday, baristas will subtract 50 cents from a customer’s purchase if he or she presents a photo (or selfie) of him- or herself throwing away a piece of Starbucks trash.

Bell said she hopes Starbucks will counter her campaign with a trash pickup effort of its own. “It would be nice for them to match” the amount of trash collected by The West customers, she said.

Patch reached out to the Starbucks press office with a description of the street-cleaning duel, but didn’t hear back.

The West’s 50-cents-off deal will last until Sept. 26, when the coffeehouse plans to celebrate its fifth anniversary with a big May West tribute bash and trivia night. (FYI, The West serves delicious beers, wines and cocktails alongside its cafe fare.) At that time, the customer with the most Starbucks trash pickup photos will be awarded a yet-to-be-revealed grand prize, Bell said.

Extra karma points go to anyone who puts recyclable Starbucks litter in a recycling bin.

The West also encourages participants to upload their photos to social media, tagged with one of the following hashes: #starbage, #theSBUXstopshere, #sbuxlitterpays, #starbuckslitter, #litterati, #stepupstarbucks! or #stepitupSBUX.