Cafe Fake: Starbucks chain branches in Baghdad turned out to be fake Israel today

In recent years, the residents of Baghdad have experienced severe political upheavals and ongoing sectarian violence, and now, one of the consolations offered by the Iraqi capital to its residents has turned out to be a fake, albeit a rather successful one.

The chain of Starbucks coffee shops, which has three branches in the city, served all of the chain's products, including the seasonal specials, alongside branded cups, napkins and boxes.

In doing so, it gave the residents of the metropolis a sense of normality, cosmopolitanism and a connection to what is happening in the big cities in the West, because it is known that there is nothing like drinking a Pumpkin Spice Latte on the banks of the Tigris and imagining that you are in New York or London.

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However, the pleasant illusion provided by the coffee shops turned out to be an unfortunate Middle Eastern disappointment this past week, when media outlets in the country revealed that the chain's branches operate without any license from the parent chain - and in fact constitute a counterfeit and an imitation that operates illegally.

It turns out that the owners of the branches illegally imported products of the chain from Turkey and Kuwait, and it turns out that he did it with quite impressive success.

Young people sit in the fake Starbucks branch in Baghdad,

The story took an even more unfortunate twist when the owner of the Iraqi chain threatened the lawyers hired by the original company to get him to stop using the brand, claiming that he is linked to one of the Shiite militias and that he could harm them and their families if they filed the lawsuit against him.

In a rare interview that the owner, Amir Mehsousi, gave to an Iraqi news network last September, he said: "I had a dream to bring Starbucks to Iraq. I approached the manager of the chain in the Middle East and asked for a franchise. They examined the request and decided to reject me, so I decided that I would do it anyway And I will bear the results."

Mahsoussi sold the branches in October to another operator, who also insisted on keeping the prestigious brand.

In recent years, Iraq has become a hotbed of copyright and intellectual property infringement, due to local businessmen who make extensive and unauthorized use of various international brands.

Contrary to what is customary in the country, the story of the Iraqi Starbucks has a slightly different ending: on the orders of the Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa Al-Khajimi, a local court ordered the owners of the coffee shop branches to remove all branding associated with the American chain, thus ending the beautiful dream of Starbucks branches In the divided Iraqi capital and in the midst of the battles.

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