The End of Fast Food Coffee As We Know It

Say it ain't so, BK Joe!

According to today's USA Today article (found here), Burger King will discontinue its current BK Joe coffee line and begin serving the Starbucks owned Seattle's Best. The reasons are cut and dry: sales are slow in today's economy and BK is doing its best to draw as many customers as possible away from their biggest breakfast rival, McDonald's.

The thing is, I hate McDonald's coffee. I loved it BEFORE they went to their fancy McCafe line but I've never cared for it since. I don't eat out for breakfast much and as I think back, I've only had one cup of fast food coffee in the past year but that cup was BK Joe which I thought was terrific. And just last weekend, when Hubby and I broke our fast food drought, I told him how I appreciated that BK still serves a good, simple cup of coffee. Ironically, I was not drinking coffee during the visit. Now, I sort of wish I'd had a cup since it's going away.

Of course, with new coffee comes new prices and the coffee will be more expensive. I guess BK is willing to bet they will attract enough customers willing to pay more for premium coffee to make up for the customers who won't or can't pay more. But I think it's kind of sad in a way. It's like those who really don't want to buy designer coffee are now being forced into it since everyone is serving it. I'm not a huge consumer of fast food breakfast so it's not like this is a life changer for me or anything but still it's sad. It's the end of an era almost. Will we someday sit around and say "Remember the good old days when you could buy a 90 cent cup of coffee?"

Am I getting old?