Caribou Gets Wi-Fi
“Customers have said they want to have Wi-Fi in the store,” said Chris Toal, Caribou vice president of marketing. “At the end of the day, it’s a service we need to offer.”
Caribou, on behalf of all independent consultants and our increasingly mobile working population, welcome to the 21st Century.
There’s two business models for coffee chains:
- Starbucks: We sell stuff, oh yeah, and there’s some coffee. Let’s put one on every block
- Peets: We sell good coffee and we expand slowly.
Locally, Caribou follows the Starbucks model and Dunn Bros follows the Peets model. Because Caribou is such a good Starbucks disciple, they’re charging for access. So, the SBC FreedomLink network they’re using is free as in speech not Free As In Beer.
Thanks to the Pioneer Press for the tip.
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[...] owntown, the Chiptole on Nicollet has a pay-per-use system like the Starbucks/T-Mobile and Caribou/SBC systems. There I have the choice of paying the $7/30minutes or walking across the street a [...]