This just in: Ames is taking its next baby step toward suburban awesomeness. New mall? Super Wal-Mart? This time it’s a real, corporately owned Starbucks, complete with drive-thru for all the office building addicts around town. Although both Ames Hy-Vee stores have been selling Starbucks coffee for several years, the question must now be asked: will Ames’ first official Starbucks be just one more addition to the coffee scene? Or will it mean bad news for the various coffee houses that call this town home? Starbucks, which opened a new location on Lincoln Way about a month ago, has become the most popular and well-known coffee chain in the country (except in Minnesota, where Starbucks is replaced with Caribou Coffee), with 101 shops just in Chicago proper and 174 locations in New York. Starbucks’ strong hand in the coffee business is a mark of its extreme popularity. Many Starbucks fans won’t even step through the doorway of any local shop. One Ames High student who considers herself a pro-Starbucks consumer is junior Evy Amaya. “I think it’s a good thing that Ames got a Starbucks,” she said. “But I do wonder if Taraccino’s Coffee will go out of business.” Taraccino’s is one of Ames’ popular coffee joints with a feel quite similar to that of Starbucks. Junior Wyatt Miller also speculated that Starbucks could drive Taraccino’s out of business. The smaller, local businesses, however, would be rather unaffected, he thought. “The type of people who go to Café Diem or Stomping Grounds are usually the kind of people who will scoff at Starbucks anyway,” Miller said. Will he be stopping in for a cup o’ joe at Starbucks in the future? “We’ll see,” he answered. Jason Kemis, another junior at Ames High, said he was not worried about dangerous competition in Ames’ coffee market. “Usually, when I go out for coffee, I go to Taraccino’s, and I’m rushing on my way to school,” he said. “Especially for us students, it’s not going to change much having a Starbucks. We’re busy and usually in a rush, so we’ll just go to the nearest place.”