Pike's Pique?

Perhaps you may remember my ruminating on a certain billboard ad campaign for Starbucks, advertising their latest "daily brew" (16 April). While I still hold to the evaluation of the logic for those ads, I have a new curiosity. Hence the title.

Upon visiting a local installment of the coffee giant in Northridge, CA with some friends, I was treated to a cup (thanks, B). So I asked what they had up. Pike Place roast was mentioned. I asked if they had anything else. I was told that it was not so. I may have appeared a tad confused. Somehow, either Starbucks is really pushing just this blend (which is unfortunate, because people ought to have choices, and if that brew is off, there's nothing else to offer), or they are lacking a sense of identity and need to compensate (because this is their "we have a coffee lovers' coffee" blend). No matter what, I discovered that Pike Place was the ONLY ready-brew the store was offering.

How is this possible? I'm not sure. I only know that it signals, to my passion for coffee, that Starbucks might finally be acknowledging their business' direction, and have become resigned to phasing out of the "Coffee Purist" genre. Ironically.