Starbucks More Common in Cities, Waltham Could Soon Get Its First

By Dante Chinn

If you are carrying a mermaid-emblazoned cup, you are more likely to be walking through the shadows of skyscrapers or looking for a place to set down your shopping bags, or perhaps past students throwing a Frisbee on the quad.

And, more likely than not, your county voted for Obama last year.

Cities, big suburban centers and college campuses are the among the nation’s biggest Starbucks magnets. Yet, Waltham has no Starbucks. That could change. 

Previous attempts to open a Starbucks in Waltham have failed, including one at 1019 Trapelo Rd. However, after that failed plan, the developer again proposed a Starbucks. 

Also, a Starbucks location has been proposed for the shopping center at 1265 Main St. currently under construction.

Whichever location is approved first, it would be Waltham's first Starbucks location.

In an effort gauge the power and reach of Starbucks nation, Patch mapped the country’s 10,000-plus outlets—stand alone stores and Starbucks cafes within other stores—with locations from the firm AggData. The biggest surprise? While Starbucks can seem ubiquitous, fewer than one-third of all U.S. counties have a local Starbucks.

There are a few clear trends in the national figures. The land of “tall” coffee cups is based most heavily around tall buildings. Nearly 30 percent of all U.S. Starbucks—2,915 of them—are based in counties holding the nation’s biggest cities. And if you are looking for sheer Starbucks density you’d be hard-pressed to beat Manhattan’s 10017 zip code, which features an astounding 20 Starbucks in just 0.3 square miles.

But if you are looking to get away from it all—or at least from the craziness of big city living—and still need a regular visit with a green-aproned barista, the map of Starbucks suggests a few strategies.

• Go back to college, or move near a major campus. The counties holding the countries biggest universities are very likely to have Starbucks purveyor nearby. Down in Texas, Travis County, home of Austin and UT has 54 locations. Boulder in Colorado, the home of UC has 31. And Dane in Wisconsin, home of UW and Bucky Badger, has 14. But beyond big state universities, Starbucks has you covered if you are small liberal arts school kind of person: quaint Keene, NH, home of Antioch University and Keene State College, offers two Starbucks.

• Go to the water, or a resort community. If you don’t want to live in a big city, go to the places where the people from the big cities vacation. If you built a hotel, mochas will come. Cape Cod has seven Starbucks. Vail has two Starbucks. The Outer Banks in North Carolina has one. Mackinac Island Michigan, in Lake Huron, has zero cars and one Starbucks. And, yes, in the Holy Hills of the Ozarks, Branson, Missouri has two Starbucks.