People are still the most unique asset of a franchise.

Mervyn’s, Bennigan’s, Boscov’s…it seems like chains are hurting and flatlining all over irrespective of industry. The economy is moribund, and many businesses are cheek-by-jowl offering the same products. In the streets of Midtown Manhattan, you can’t miss the scrap between Starbucks and sandwich-shop-cum-café Pret à Manger – and who seems to be getting ground down.

Starbucks recently announced it’s closing 616 stores nationwide. MR Magazine’s NYC office shares a block with one Starbucks, and another is just two blocks north. Both Starbucks are distinguished by grim interiors and poor service. Everything is merchandised, with even the atmosphere music identified on a flat-screen TV you can see from the outdoor end of the line around 9 a.m. Were this to be closed, one wouldn’t miss snarling staff, entry-level jazz, and flies.

Such culling would thin the competition on the ground, because “Pret,” which until recently had only two stores within walking distance of our office, now has three. In the placement calculus invented by Starbucks, Pret’s new store is a block away from “ours.”

Being “ours” has made the nearest Pret our go-to location for everything from morning espresso and Americanos to an afternoon snack. The sandwiches and soup are swell too, and giving unsold merchandise away to City Harvest at the end of the day must tickle the conscience. But how has the MR breakfast club come to feel that the store at 39th and Broadway belongs to us?

It may be a cliché, but service is what keeps us coming back. That especially bears mentioning given the samey assembly-line coffee market. We each had our own preferred outlets for pastries and pick-me-ups until we noticed individually that no matter how busy it was at Pret, the staff were cheerful and efficient – much more so than the surly Starbuckles and tar pit-paced Juan Valdezistas. Pret’s 39th-street staff work well together, handing off sales and delegating work across a bank of registers and the dual industrial-volume espresso grinder/machines.

(L to R) Lorena, Nathaly, Danny, Sade, Solange.

There’s a dignity and ebullience to staff conduct that’s evident at the other branches too, but not so charming as it is here. If they take the same coffee order for you enough times, they’ll have it ready before you cross the shop – if it’s your customary time of day.

(L to R) Ralphy, Nathaly, Dale, Sade, Danny, Lorena, Mereyem.

Our Pret’s staff are proud of their wages and benefits, they go to Great America together on trips at company rates to scream on rides (team-building), and they might talk of their families and aspirations while standing around with customers after their shift. One day I saw three staff lounging around after punching out – they were not hightailing it out of there as one often sees at many entry-level employers.

I’m impressed that Pret found these diligent, effervescent staff in the same talent pool drawn from by the other chains. It always bears repeating that the sales staff are all most customers will ever see of your business, and it speaks volumes about your entire enterprise.

Corporate was almost as friendly as the frontline staff. I had only to explain my blog in the broadest terms before the department OK’ed my photography of the staff and the branch. In a business where we are regularly thwarted by corporate gag orders, it’s nice to be trusted a priori.

Outside the headquarters, there have been subtle tweaks to the café/sandwicherie formula. The walls are replete with reflecting surfaces for Garment District workers to preen themselves in; I’m sure people who can look at themselves and each other surreptitiously are less restless in line. Staff polish the steel to a surgical shine every day. Pret’s soundtracks are often European-flavored downtempo or Brazilian lounge, never anything too corny or forward. Pret sells food and drink, not ethical water bottles, CDs and branded products that involve practically every aspect of coffee production and consumption except roasting. Pret’s uniforms (in the U.S., anyway – I’m told that in the U.K. they wear polos) do not involve degradingly cheap polo shirts like other U.S. chains; they are band collars with the 5-pointed star heavily stitched onto the back of a white shirt, and burgundy starred caps. Drip coffee is self-serve (as is most of the food) and sure, the smell of fresh-baked baguettes or croissants has a magical effect.

But in a time when your impulse purchases are made from a broad array of similar businesses, that smile, thoughtful gesture, flashed picture of a baby or greeting from everyone behind the counter does make a difference, and MR’s breakfast club realized it at the same time. By then it was too late – we had already put many of the staff’s kids through college.