You have to hand it to the founder of the company though. The guy really built quite an impressive empire. I think the move to instant coffee will hurt the image of their stores though. Right now their stores are perceived as a high cost high value selection in coffee. The instant coffee alternative cheapens the brand. The people who start associating instant coffee with Starbucks open themselves up for some other competitor of Starbucks to take the high price high quality coffee position away from Starbucks.

Watch for some other high end coffee brand to start advertising:

Instant Coffee: Never Have. Never will.

The food was awesome. We had a couple of appetizers including some kind of egg roll & cheese dish (I forget what it was called) and some clams casino. Yummy. We had our normal cocktail before dinner that we usually do. We had a Red Zinfandel with dinner that was also very nice.

The salad was fresh and crisp. The garlic bread was outstanding. I had a haddock filet cooked in a white wine sauce with mushrooms. My wife had a dish that contained shrimp, scallops and pasta in a sherry sauce. Her sauce tasted a lot like a seafood bisque. Both dinners were excellent. I, of course, sampled my wife’s meal.

They even gave us a lemon sorbet for in between the appetizer and the main meal to cleanse the palate. I thought that was a very nice touch in traditional Italian style.

Really everything we ate there was surprisingly delicious. Between the service, the atmosphere and the quality of the food, I cannot believe this place wasn’t totally full. We will definitely be back for more.