The Great Coffe Conspiracy

Most Barnes & Noble locations feature a Barnes & Noble Café, serving the same drink menu as Starbucks. B&N Cafés are owned and operated exclusively by Barnes & Noble, Inc but Starbucks Corporation has contracted with Barnes & Noble to operate cafes in Barnes & Noble superstores under the Starbucks brand. So the Starbucks logo is a prominent portion of the overall B&N café branding package, and is depicted on cups, architectural signage, and employee uniforms.

The Borders bookstore chain signed a contract with Seattle's Best Coffee in 2004 to convert Borders' in-store cafés to Seattle's Best cafés. As of 2006, approximately half of Borders' domestic superstores have completed the Seattle's Best conversion.

This then caused me to think there is a healthy rivalry between book store café's. But then I discovered that Seattle's Best Coffee has a parent company. Yes you guessed it that Starbucks Corporation is actually the parent company of Seattle's Best Coffee. Then to top that off Starbucks also owns and operates café locations within Chapters Bookstores in Canada.