Starbucks Goes High End With New Reserve Store

The first location in Seattle has a bar setting with cocktails and a fuller offering of food.

February 28, 2018

SEATTLE – Starbucks invites customers to enjoy a more relaxed, gentile environment, sipping cocktails instead of coffee, at its new Reserve stores. The company opened its first high-end location in Seattle, the Seattle Times reports. Starbucks says it will open up to 1,000 Reserve stores.

Reserve has a bar setting that pairs cocktails with appetizers and a fuller offering of food and drinks. The concept shares some similarities with its Roastery, a high-end coffee bar that has a handful of locations with four additional ones planned over the next 24 months.

Reserve stores aim to keep customers around during the late afternoon and evening with a full bar. “We want to be a part of the community and are looking forward to being a stop on the way to sporting events, on the way to [the] theater, on the way to concerts,” said Shauna McKenzie-Lee, director of operations for Starbucks’ Siren Retail line.

The first Reserve clocks in at 8,100 square feet, making it quadruple the typical Starbucks location. A second Reserve will open in Chicago sometime this year.

Meanwhile, in London, Starbucks customers will be shelling out an additional 5 pence for a paper cup at 35 locations during a three-month trial, the Daily Mail reports. Proceeds from the extra charge will be given to Hubbub, an environmental charity, which is tracking how the upcharge impacts customer behavior.

“We’re hoping that this charge will remind customers to rethink their use of single-use plastic-lined cups, as it has with plastic bags,” said Simon Redfern of Starbucks Europe. “We’ve offered a reusable cup discount for 20 years, with only 1.8% of customers currently taking [us up on] this offer, so we’re really interested in working with Hubbub to see how this charge could help to change behavior and help to reduce waste.”

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