Page 17 - The Starbucks Experience

Introduction

From Seattle to Portland and Beyond
In 1971, the Starbucks Coffee, Tea, and Spice store started
business in Seattle, Washington. Before that first Starbucks
opened its doors, people stopped by the corner coffee shop
for a 50-cent cup that came with the promise of free refills.
For some of us, the morning was not complete without a visit
to the convenience store, where we poured our own black,
murky brew into a white foam cup. To kill the taste, we
doused the mixture with gobs of powdered cream and sugar,
and stirred it with a thin red plastic stick (which was sup-
posed to double as a straw). We would hand our change to
an apathetic cashier who performed the job just well enough
to earn the minimum wage. It was an unvarying and unin-
spired customer ritual and transaction.
Despite the monotonous nature and poor quality of this
2 transaction, most of us didn’t know that there was any other
way to “enjoy” coffee. While we were slogging through our
days with freeze-dried, burnt, or lackluster home-brew,
Howard Schultz, Starbucks former CEO and current chair-
man, asked an intriguing question: “What would happen if
you took the quality coffee bean tradition of Starbucks and
merged it with the charm and romance of the European cof-
feehouse?” His answer: Starbucks could transform the tradi-
tional American coffee experience from the ordinary to the
extraordinary. Of course, it is not clear that even Howard
Schultz recognized the huge potential of his vision. Howard
disclosed at a Starbucks shareholders’ meeting that up to
1980, “Our big dream was to open a store in Portland, Ore-
gon.” With over 11,000 stores worldwide, the company has
certainly come a long way from its original goal.
By all accounts, Howard’s concept was an ambitious idea.
How do you change people’s view of coffee? After all, coffee