TAOS, New Mexico (Reuters) - After two arson attacks at a Starbucks construction site in Taos, New Mexico, a developer is trying again to build the chain's first drive-through cafe in the mountain town with a history of revolts and opposition by some to national chains.
It did not take long for locals in this community of 6,500 to come up with a nickname for the would-be coffee shop: "Charbucks." Meanwhile, the building contractor from Albuquerque, the state's largest city, has installed video cameras and a security guard sleeps at the site in a camouflage trailer.
Just over a mile north of the site of the store, which Starbucks hopes to open in the spring of 2025, patrons at one of Taos' oldest independent coffee shops are tight-lipped about the attacks.
"We don't know who did it, but we loved it," said Todd Lazar, a holistic healer, as he chatted with other regulars on a bench outside the World Cup, just off Taos' central plaza.
Their conversation echoes criticism Starbucks faced as it moved into Europe and Asia that the U.S. coffee chain clashes with local culture and will shovel money out of communities. Starbucks operates or licenses around 39,500 cafes worldwide.
Stickers plastered on locally owned businesses show the Starbucks logo - which features a mermaid - on fire, with the mermaid's face replaced by La Calavera Catrina, a skull character associated with Mexico's Day of the Dead and that country's national identity.
After the first fire in August 2023, the word "NO" preceded by an expletive was spray-painted on the partially burned structure intended to be a Starbucks.
From the 1680 Indigenous Pueblo Revolt against Spanish settlement, to the 1847 Taos Revolt against U.S. occupation and more recently an arson attack on a development tycoon and opposition to a billionaire's ski resort development, Taos locals have resisted outside forces.
"Taos is a dynamic and volatile contact zone between different groups, imperial powers, ecotones," said Sylvia Rodriguez, emerita professor of anthropology at the University of New Mexico who has conducted research on her home town of Taos for decades.
Located 7,000 feet (2,134 meters) above sea level in northern New Mexico's high mountain desert, Taos is known for its UNESCO World Heritage Site Native American settlement, art scene and steep ski runs.
The area also has deep social inequalities and disconnect between Indigenous, Hispano - descendants of colonial settlers - and other communities, with New Mexico's highest property crime rate.
People like Lazar complain that a wave of remote workers during and after the pandemic are driving demand for national chains and exacerbating housing shortages common in U.S. West resort towns.
Taos’ town council supported the store on grounds it would provide employment and tax revenue, according to Christopher Larsen, the town's economic development director
"NOT COOL"
World Cup owner Andrea Meyer said jobs were not the problem.
"People are showing up saying 'I'd love to work here, I can't afford to live here,'" said Meyer, who runs a cash-only cafe with no Wi-Fi so as to encourage patrons to talk to one other.
Few working households can afford Taos' average home price of $460,000. Around a third of housing units sit vacant, some as second homes and vacation dwellings, others after traditional Hispano families left the area, or other factors, according to census data.
Two or three national chains pulled out of Taos projects after Starbucks burned a second time on Oct. 23, 2023, according to Larsen.
"The feeling is that Taos doesn't want corporate America," he said.
Starbucks spokesman Sam Jefferies said employee safety was its top priority and it would work closely with police once the store opened. No one has been injured in the fires.
The town has licensed Starbucks outlets in two supermarkets. Jefferies said the performance of cafes in nearby towns was a factor in opening a Taos store.
Based on news reports over the last three decades, Taos appears to be the only place in the world where a future Starbucks cafe has been burned to the ground.
Neither contractor Hart Construction nor Arizona-based developer and building owner Clint Jameson responded to requests for comment. On his company website, Jameson, who plans to lease the property to Starbucks, describes himself as "relentless" and a "development maverick."
The town and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) have offered a $30,000 reward for information on the fires. Police believe they know the culprit, or culprits, but lack evidence to place them at the site during the blazes, Larsen said. Taos Police Chief John Wentz declined to comment. ATF spokesman Cody Monday said the agency continued following leads and searching for the suspect or suspects.
At the Coffee Apothecary a mile south of the town's central plaza, owner Pablo Flores vouched for demand for Starbucks-like drinks such as iced caramel frappes, which he tells disappointed customers he does not serve.
The specialty coffee roaster lamented the cookie-cutter sameness of national chains sprouting south of town but abhorred their destruction. He saw the fires as an example of how dialogue has broken down amid political polarization across the country.
"Taos is changing and if you don't like the way it's changing, do not support that business," said Flores, whose family has lived in Taos for generations. "Don't burn it down, that's not cool."
(Reporting by Andrew Hay in Taos, New Mexico; Editing by Donna Bryson and Matthew Lewis)
