The NYT looks at how the biggest and maybe most contentious new brand of the last decade, Starbucks, is running into some serious growing pains. While still hugely profitable, customer traffic has slowed and its stock took a huge nose dive.

The company recently fired its chief exec and hired back Starbucks OG Howard Schultz, who wasted no time in authoring a memo somewhat ironically titled “The Commoditization of the Starbucks Experience.” I would’ve called it “Starbucks: The Insidious Commodification of Hip,” but hey, that’s just me.

Anyway, The Times uses as its hook the story of the Broadway Cafe, a popular, back-to-basics coffee shop in Kansas City that has stayed in business for more than a decade while Starbucks around them have closed.

Always had an inkling Kansas City might be the secret awesome…

After going head-to-head with Starbucks for almost 10 years, Mr. Cates, the Broadway Cafe owner, said he no longer worried much about competition from the company. Starbucks, he said, has lost its focus on coffee, noting that the company switched from making espresso by hand to robotic machines that pump out drinks with the push of a button.

“For them, the move to fully automated machines was inevitable, but they lost something,” Mr. Cates said. “If you are a barista, you have to roast your own coffee. It’s a necessity. You cannot compete by selling music or WiFi.”

Even some loyal Starbucks customers here concede that something has changed, and not for the better.

“It’s lost its mom-and-pop home-away-from-home feel,” said Aga Machauf, a 26-year-old event planner, while sipping a grandé caramel macchiato. “It feels more corporate now.”

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