This past weekend, the inventor and foremost practitioner of “Starbucking” swung through town. Winter (that is his full, legal name) had two relatively new Starbucks in South St. Louis County to cross off his list. When the 52-year-old got in town on Saturday morning, his tally of Starbucks he’d patronized stood at 20,038. The new-ish stores off Telegraph and Tanzberger would be 20,039 and 20,040. He’s been doing what he calls Starbucking since 1997, hitting stores in more than 60 countries—everywhere from Poland to Panama, Morocco to Malaysia, Singapore to St. Louis.
Winter and I met at Black Lab Coffee in University City on Saturday morning. He’s recently expanded his endeavor to include independent craft coffeehouses and “foodie pursuits.” He also planned to hit up Honey Bee’s Biscuits and Quarrelsome Coffee, the beloved shop in its final weekend, as well. This leg of his never-ending tour is taking him from Houston to Rochester, where he’ll start a contract, initially for six months, working as computer programmer for a defense contractor, making money to fund his travels and other pursuits as well as for care for his elderly mother. He was enjoying the stop through town.
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“Personally I’ve found St. Louis to be a craft coffee market that I never tire of exploring, in large part because I really love this city,” he says. “As a place to explore coffee, and food, greater St. Louis is fantastic.”
Winter, who was born in Chicago and grew up in Houston, is also a semi-regular guest on Time Crisis with Ezra Koenig, an internet streaming radio show that blends chatter about music with chatter about corporate food history more adroitly than one would think possible and has developed a devoted following because of it. Winter says his appearances have been real signal boosts, allowing him to make more connections in the locales he visits. “St. Louis has a lot of fans,” he says of the podcast, adding that, “Starbucks is the least interesting, meaningful aspect of Starbucking.” It’s all about the experiences he has and people he meets along the way, he says.
The brew at Black Lab was one of the top three coffees he’s had on the road to Rochester, he said, rating it a 7.5. Later, he posted on Instagram that Honey Bee’s biscuits were “on point, quite the equal of any excellent biscuits from the South.” He added visiting Quarrelsome was a bit of a bummer given how good its coffee was and that he was there on its penultimate day in business.
Even when he’s not on the road, Winter sleeps in his car. “That’s a lifestyle,” he says. Coincidentally, his car is a Honda Fit that he bought in St. Charles on a previous swing through the region.
By Saturday night, Winter had already left town, crashing for the evening in a Walmart parking lot in Godfrey, Illinois. The two Starbucks in South County had perhaps once again proven his point that the stores themselves are the least interesting aspect of his endeavor. He texted that evening that they were both of the drive-thru/walk-up-only variety. “As I expected,” he wrote. “Many new urban stores are.”
