Description:
Starbucks specializes in the sale of coffee and other beverages at around 8,500 stores operated and licensed in the US and across the globe. The company operates in three segments: company-operated retail stores, specialty operations, and foodservice accounts.
Starbucks originally opened in 1971. The Seattle based store began by selling whole Arabic coffee beans to consumers. In 1987 it was purchased by Howard Schultz and he made the company what it is today. The company started selling coffee by the cup and opened new stores in various locations. There were 140 stores in the Northwest and Chicago by 1992. Starbucks was the dominant specialty-coffee chain in North America by 2002. There were over 5,000 stores which served over 20 million customers world wide.
The Starbucks Coffee Company opened its first store in Seattle's Pike Place Market in 1971. A little over a decade later, Howard Schultz became the coffee roaster's director of retail and marketing. After a trip to Milan in 1983, Schultz realizes the possibilities of a 'coffee culture' in the United States. He thinks the Starbucks franchise can be the instrument to bring this culture about. He persuades the company's original founders to test out his concept in a new location in downtown Seattle. The results change the course of the company, and the consumer landscape, forever.
Schultz and a group of local investors buy the assets of the coffee company and officially change its name to Starbucks. There are only seventeen locations at the time. Following a successful mail-order catalog launch, the establishment of a relationship with Barnes and Nobles, and a successful 1992 IPO, the company begins a fantastic run that will blossom the number of stores to more than 5,886.
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