Cup O' Joe Millionaires

A quarter for a cup of joe? Feh. There's big money in them there beans. Starbucks started the revolution. Now Rick Munarriz checks in on the coffee wars to see if anyone has enough buzz to compete with the giant.

By Rick Aristotle Munarriz (TMF Edible)

It's been nearly a decade since the infamous McDonald's coffee lawsuit. An elderly woman leaving a Mickey D's drive-thru window, trying to add some cream and sugar into her steaming cup of joe, mishandled the coffee and suffered third degree burns. She sued the world's largest restaurant chain and won. It was a $2.7 million award that was ultimately reduced to $480,000 on appeal. Both parties eventually settled out of court.

In retrospect, there is one amazing McNugget to this hot molten java story that rarely gets mentioned. That errant cup of coffee? McDonald's was charging just $0.49 for the stuff! Flash forward to the amazing growth of Starbucks (Nasdaq: SBUX) and its elasticity -- if not audacity -- to charge $2 for a cup of coffee or even more for flavored bean water.

There is money in them there beans. Lots of money.

Too bad McDonald's is still nursing its wounds.

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