Perhaps the BEST B1G Forum anywhere, here at College Football Fan Site, CFB51!!!

Even though I assume nobody walks into a Starbucks and just orders a black coffee.

Because their drip coffee usually SUCKS. I find it's hit or miss. Sometimes their drip coffee is good. But as CD described it "over-roasted", when you get a bad cup of Starbucks drip coffee, it's absolutely terrible. I find most of the other coffee chains are at least consistent in making black coffee. 

I rarely go into a coffee shot except on vacation where I don't have access to my own coffee maker. But when I do, I will often be the guy ordering black coffee instead of all the "specialty" coffee drinks. Even at Starbucks, I'll usually order a black iced coffee. I don't know if it's brewed differently for iced coffee or if the coldness just blunts the flavor of bad Starbucks drip coffee, but it's never terrible. 

When I used to drink coffee, I found Dunkin' to be very good.

There used to be a chain convenience store in and around Chicago (and some other states) called The White Hen Pantry. They had great coffee. They were bought out by 7-11.

Dunkin is decent.  I forgot Tim Hortons, I find theirs to be legitimately good.

Tim Horton's used to be in the US outside of Detroit and Buffalo. IIRC, the franchisee in the Midwest was a in a major dispute with corporate that led to them closing all their locations.

My coffee palate was developed on construction site rotgut. 

Also, I inherited from my dad (who died a year ago today) the ability to drink hot coffee at all hours of the day.

I've only ever heard of Tim Horton's on some of those "national coffee shop chain" lists.  There are none in the Austin area, apparently a couple around Houston and that's it for Texico.

The common ones around here are Starbuck's and Dunkin, and then some regional chains like Shipley Donuts and Summer Moon.

When I'm on a driving trip, I'll order coffee wherever we have bfast and lunch.  Most of it, to me, is about the same, varying some on freshness which is variable.

A busy place will have better coffee, usually.  McDs at 1 PM, probably not.

There were some Tim Horton's in Cincy, they were more like a small Bucky's.

Generally agree, freshness matters. And to a large extent, if you're just drinking standard dark roast black coffee, there's not a HUGE difference in them. Which is why I don't understand how Starbucks screws it up so often. I have a theory that they make their drip coffee badly to encourage people into buying their more expensive specialty coffee drinks instead. I'm also convinced a lot of coffee drinkers don't even like coffee; they NEED cream/sugar or latte/etc to make it palatable to be their caffeine delivery system. 

The worst for me was driving up to Oregon one year with my wife. As we left after work, we ended up stopping in Stockton, CA overnight, and leaving the hotel REALLY early, I think < 6 AM, as it was Thanksgiving morning so we wanted to get the rest of the way as early as possible. 

As I was loading the car, my wife got us coffee from the Starbucks that was in the hotel. Just drip black coffee for me. 

It was so disgusting that we pulled off the freeway three exits up, threw it out, and got McD's 

should have bought the stock

yup, the starbucks near me ALWAYS has a line at the drive thru.  I don't remember ever driving by that there wasn't at least 4 or 5 cars in line.

many times 10-12 cars and sometimes more

gotta be a gold mine