With five dollars in your pocket and a thirst for a caffeinated beverage, where will you turn?

If you stand at the corner of Main Street and Second Avenue, the bevy of choices presented to you will soon be four-fold: continue on Second to Tim Hortons, down to the foot of Main Street to the Backerie, further down and you could go to Zola's Cafe Dore, or, standing right at the corner, you could walk into the new Starbucks location in the old Main Man shop.

Jackson Lyttle, manager of the Chilkoot Centre Starbucks, said the new location is slated to open in mid-April.

It will be under new management, and be a little larger but otherwise, not much will differ. Thus is the ready-made franchise package of Starbucks.

For some, Starbucks is a comfort zone, where the warm decor, new jazz music and made-to-order laundry-list lattes are the same anywhere you go.

Ordering a grand chai latte non-fat with vanilla can be predictable in an otherwise tumultuous world.

For others, the store stands for a corporate conglomerate pushing the little guy off the coffee shop business map, the green circle and star logo symbolizing all that is wrong with global capitalism.

If one enters "Starbucks" into Google's blog search, a slew of chain-bashing entries pop up, indicating the popularity of collective "damning the man."

Coincidentally or not, the coffee chain also hails from the same spot as the "Battle of Seattle" protests, where activists staged one of modern history's more dramatic anti-globalization movements.

Here in Whitehorse, coffee shop owners don't seem so worried.

The first Starbucks coffee shop opened up in Whitehorse complete with drive-through window and sometimes confusing cup sizes. Since when does tall mean small?

While Starbucks plans to expand, local coffee outlets, like Midnight Sun Coffee Roaster's and Java Connection, are still open, still serving coffee.

Is Whitehorse a microcosm in which both global chain and local kitsch can successfully co-exist?

Marketing analyst Kenneth Wong, a faculty member from the Queen's School of Business in Kingston, Ont., said the dichotomy between global chain and independent store can indeed exist in java harmony.

He said local coffee shops survive when they offer a different environment than Tim Hortons and Starbucks.

"You're not selling coffee, you're selling experience," said Wong, who has represented both Tim Hortons and Starbucks in his private practice.

Tim Hortons offers quick, inexpensive service, while Starbucks offers a mood, music, and what he calls coffee theatre: the performance of creating a latte just right.

"The question you have to ask yourself if you're a local coffee shop owner is: "What do I have to bring that is different?" The answer, he said, is local content.

Zola Dore said she certainly has customers who worry another Starbucks could be the end of her Midnight Sun Coffee Roaster's mini-empire.

"We've got some pretty fervent loyalty," she said over the hum of a coffee bean grinder Monday.

While the Starbucks sign in its future Main Street location's window is confirmation, Dore said, she knew of the impending spread.

"It's no surprise," she said.

Dore used to work the coffee scene in Vancouver, she said, when Starbucks were popping up at nearly every corner turned. As of February 2008 there were 79 within Canada's third-largest city.

"It doesn't bother me," said the coffee connoisseur.

Instead of being worried, Dore said she is optimistic. When customers of the tested-and-true chain become comfortable spending their $5 on a cup of Starbucks coffee, it's a matter of time before they're in her shop.

"People try it, and they're not so freaked out about coming to my shop," she said. "I'll do the same or better than before."

Her coffee will win because it's of a higher quality, she said.

"But of course, I'm biased," she said with a laugh.

Dore said she was working on her day off, as running a small, growing business leaves little time for rest. At least she's working among stimulants.

When the Canada Games Centre opened, Dore saw her coffee shop offspring multiply. An outlet of the Midnight Sun Coffee Roaster provides warm drinks to hockey parents daily.

Dore said she hasn't ever had any contact with Starbucks management, and doesn't know that it's necessary.

"They do their thing, their corporate thing, and I do mine," she said.

That said, a walk into the Chilkoot Centre Starbucks, and the scary, impersonal notion of a corporate-controlled subsystem is not the impression given.

Barristas make witty banter alongside mocha lattes, and Lyttle can often be seen asking customers how they're enjoying their job, their families.

The Starbucks bristol board is adorned with colourful flyers about art shows and community meetings, as are those bristol boards that hang in Zola's Cafe Dore and Backerie's Kaffee Haus.

The levels of local connection, ambiance and of course coffee quality are subjective to the palettes and preferences of you, the Whitehorse resident.

What makes the local versus global debate continue is the presence of a choice.

Where will your coffee change go?