It's precisely the sort of business imbroglio that made Doreen Stur gis ditch corporate life in the first place. An MBA and former management consultant who opted out to open a neighborhood coffeehouse in Santa Monica, Sturgis now finds herself pitted against a company Fortune magazine named one of the fastest growing in America: Starbucks, which has just opened an outlet within a block of her and plans to open another within the next several months.

"We're the filling of a Starbucks sandwich," said Sturgis, who's puzzled and angry at the competition the Seattle-based corporation has brought to the Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica.

The company's franchise opened two weeks ago and already business at Sturgis' Congo Square Espresso and Tea House has taken a noticeable slide. "We've felt more effects since they've opened than we have in three years," she said. "We'd like to stay but . . . how are we going to handle competing against two?"

What a difference a new decade makes. Five years ago, when many believed the only decent cup of (American) coffee to be found on the Westside was at the Apple Pan on Pico Boulevard, and when many people assumed \o7 macchiatto \f7 was a new Italian sports car and \o7 espresso \f7 was how fast your pizza got delivered, coffeehouses were thought to exist only on cobbled European avenues or in the funkier stretches of San Francisco. Sitting over tiny white cups of dark, bitter brew was considered too languorous and "bohemian" for the muscular, upscale 1980s--at least in Los Angeles.

Today, of course, with Angelenos, and particularly Westsiders, embracing coffeehouses with the zeal of converts, it's hard to recall those pre-caffeinated times.

Of the more than 230 coffeehouses in Greater Los Angeles, nearly 100 are clustered on the Westside, according to "Caffe L.A.," a recently published comprehensive listing of cafes, coffeehouses and merchants. Many opened in the past three years.

With decor and ambience ranging from shabby to chic to shabby-chic, coffeehouses have become the perfect hangout for Generation X slackers long on time and short on prospects, the city's coterie of artists and those simply longing for a sense of community or a place to chat.

"There are more coffeehouses than mini-malls at the current moment," quipped Toby Berlin, who, as executive director of the Learning Annex in West Los Angeles, is in a unique position to analyze the area's social and cultural Zeitgeist. Four months ago, the Learning Annex began offering a three-hour, $49 course on how to open a coffeehouse.