In July 1980, the simmering cold war between the US and the USSR reached its symbolic

nadir as the International Olympic Committee's awarding of the Games to Moscow inspired an

American-led boycott of the competition.

With 65 countries refusing to participate due to the ongoing Soviet invasion of Afghanistan,

the competition was the shell of its normal self with most of the elite athletes sidelined.

At the closing ceremony, it's a jumbo-sized idol of Misha, the Games' grizzly bare mascot

was rigged with helium balloons and untethered to ascend out of the stadium and high into

the night sky as a weeping crowd saluted and waived, a surreal end to a sham Games waged

under a totalitarian state.

And today is the sunset on a similarly disastrous 2016 Dolimpix we turn to the beverage associated

with the sunrise, the morning, a new beginning, and hopefully a brighter future.

The warm drink made from roasted beans native to tropical Africa that became a global sensation.

The combatants, a triad of behemoths which comprise the three biggest coffee retailers in

the US, selling a combined $750 million worth of hot brown annually and ranking as the

first, third, and seventh biggest chains in America respectively.

McDonald's, the golden arches that shorthand for US food culture, Starbucks, the ubiquitous

Seattle-based coffee house that took its name from the chief mate in Moby Dick and Duncan

Donets, the pride of decrepit cesspool and more rundown version of Lowell known as Quincy

Massachusetts.

This week on Doe Boys, the third and final week of the 2016 Dolimpix Susser Games, coffee

division.

Welcome to Doe Boys, the podcast about chain restaurants.

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