Starbucks (1994 visit)

People in the Northwest and especially Seattle have a love affair with coffee. It isn't an exaggeration when I tell you there's a kiosk, coffee shop or street vendor on every corner hawking latte, espresso or cappuccino. There are some 3,000 commercial espresso makers in Seattle and an estimated 10,000 in Washington. How lucrative is it? Enough so that even the local McDonalds have espresso and latte on their menus.

Who's the Haagen-Dazs of this industry? Starbucks Coffee Company. This fast expanding purchaser and roaster of high-quality whole bean coffees operates over 200 retail stores in metropolitan areas of Washington, Oregon, California and Illinois with ambitious plans for many more.

Riding up to their two-story headquarters in a warehouse area several miles south of downtown Seattle, the rainy air is filled with the sweet smell of not coffee beans being roasted but, beer from the nearby Rainier brewery (a regional beer). Meeting with Laura Moix, who's business card reads; Media Relations Contact, she says Starbucks and Rainier daily compete for smell superiority and it's usually decided by which way the wind is blowing. All the conference rooms are named after countries from which Starbucks buys its coffee beans. Moix and I are conversing in the Guatemala Room.

The company's mission statement is prominently displayed on a lobby wall and two very friendly receptionists man the reception desk. After calling up Moix, the two receptionists repeatedly ask me if I'd like a cup of coffee while waiting. I mention this because during my visit I'm asked over a dozen times by various employees if I'd like a cup of coffee. The problem is; I HATE coffee. It turns your teeth yellow and makes my stomach hot and queasy. I ask Moix if you have to be a coffee drinker to work here. "No, but it helps", she answers.
Over 400 employees work in this leased 100,000 square foot building and an 80,000 square foot office building next door. Offices in the headquarters building occupy only a small portion of the 100,000 square feet. The majority is used for warehouse, shipping and the roasting of the coffee beans.

From CEO Howard Schultz's corner upstairs office he can look outside one window and see a railroad siding. The other window (a big picture window) is similar to a plant manager's; it allows Schultz to overlook the entire roasting, shipping and warehouse area. The walls in Schultz's office are lined with Starbucks advertisements and, a typical coffee menu found in their stores.

I'm introduced to Dave Olsen, Senior Vice President-Coffee, who's responsible for buying the company's coffee and is the company's official coffee taster. I remember reading where Dreyer's Ice Cream has a million-dollar insurance policy on the taste buds of the company's official ice cream taster. I ask Olsen if he has a similar arrangement. The fellow avid cyclist laughs and says, "No".

Starbucks (1993 revenues $154 million, net income $9 million) is named after the coffee loving first mate in Moby Dick, and its logo features a two tailed siren-a popular decoration carved on cathedrals in Europe