Wicked weather in the eastern U.S. makes me happy to be in mild Seattle.

My recent trip east was delayed by a storm, but eventually I made it to Columbus, Ohio, where Cup O Joe is still the most happening coffee shop in German Village. Its coffee is roasted locally by Stauf's Coffee Roasters in Grandview, which now owns Cup O Joe, according to my barista that night, Randy Niemi (top photo).

Other photos from the trip: I couldn't figure out what the coffee truck (below, somewhere in Kentucky) was carrying. Brewed coffee? How old? And, at the bottom, a Seattle's Best Coffee in Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport was selling ice cream sundaes with frozen yogurt from Freshens ($4.10 a sundae). Is that common at SBC? I'd never seen it before.

While I was gone, I missed Starbucks' announcement that it will sell ready-to-drink beverages in Europe. It didn't name which drinks, but its biggest RTD beverage is the Frappuccino. And CEO Howard Schultz told the Mirror that the U.K. economy is rebounding faster than the U.S. Starbucks will open 30 locally focused shops there this year, the paper reported.

Starbucks also asked mayors and other city leaders nationwide to improve commercial and residential recycling systems, which is interesting in light of the current recycling proposal before shareholders. The great variance in recycling programs across the country "presents a significant barrier for a business with more than 11,000 retail locations in the U.S. alone," Starbucks said in the release.

Jones Lang LaSalle wrote in a release that vacancy rates continue to go up in this area because of changes among big tenants. "In the fourth quarter of 2009, Whirlpool and Starbucks vacated over 1.1MM sf of warehouse distribution space negatively effecting vacancy rates for the Puget Sound area," it said.

A recent customer loyalty study by Brand Keys puts Starbucks behind Dunkin' Donuts, and while I was in the Midwest, photographer and traveling coffee blogger Rob Casey was checking out java in Hawaii. Nice!

Update 2/9/2010: Freshens' advertising director e-mailed to say that it co-brands locations with Seattle's Best Coffee at airports in Atlanta and Orlando.