SEATTLE – Starbucks is
taking its time to craft Europe’s first high-end Roastery, the Seattle
Times reports. Early in 2016, the company announced it would partner with
Percassi, an Italian company, to open Italy’s first Starbucks store. However,
the success of the Roastery in its hometown, coupled with other Roastery
locations intended for New York City, Shanghai and Tokyo, halted those plans.
Starbucks now views
opening a Roastery in Milan as a good first “quintessential experience in
Italy,” said CEO and Chairman Howard Schultz. The 25,000-square-foot Milan
Roastery will be located in a 100-year-old post office building.
The Italian Roastery will
feature Starbucks Reserve coffee beans, which it will roast onsite, and its
premium, small-lot coffees brewed in coffee presses, pour-over and siphon methods.
Food will be provided onsite by Princi, an Italian bakery business that
Starbucks snapped up in 2016.
The Milan announcement
highlights a shift in Starbucks’ focus from traditional stores to high-end
locations. The company has stated its goal of opening between 20 and 30
Roasteries. At the Seattle Roastery, customers spend, on average, quadruple
what they shell out at its traditional coffeehouse.
Starbucks will wait until
after the Milan Roastery opens to map out its plans for other Italian locations.
Historically, the company has opened between 10 and 12 units the first year in
a new area.