Reminds me of this classic article on a business strategy of opening a coffee shop across the road from a Starbucks - http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/hey_wait_a_m...
http://edition.cnn.com/2010/LIVING/wayoflife/01/06/i.spy.ste...
https://www.google.com/maps/@49.284602,-123.12482,3a,75y,229...
One of them has been closed since this Street View image was taken in 2012, but they were both there for some time (I had worked in the area in 2008 and they both were definitely there then).
You're not invested (usually) in going to a particular Starbucks when you're getting your coffee on the go. This lets them increase the throughput for the area, while also capturing traffic (foot traffic in the case of this setup it seems) from more directions. You want coffee, but it's on the opposite corner then you have to cross two roads two times each? That's inconvenient. You have to cross, in the worst case, one road twice to get coffee in this setup. (Note: I don't think people analyze their behavior to that depth, but ease of access is at least an unconcious factor in determining whether to visit a place.)
http://www.theonion.com/articles/new-starbucks-opens-in-rest...