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In what he describes as an epiphany, idea hit him, "why not create community gathering places like great coffee house of Italy in United States?" He wondered. This idea would place Starbucks coffee history into annuls of business journals for decades to come.
However, his idea was not well received by Baldwin as he wasn’t too keen on getting into restaurant business and distracting him from his original plan of selling whole beans. But he did let him test a small espresso bar in corner of one of stores. It was an immediate success and Schultz branched out on his own and opened Il Giornale, a coffee house named after Italy’s largest newspaper, ‘The Daily’.
In 1987 Starbuck’s was up for sale and Schultz raised $3.8 million by convincing investors of his vision, one hundred and twenty-five outlets in next five years. Schultz modified Starbuck’s bare-breasted mermaid logo into a more socially acceptable figure, changed name of Il Giornale to Starbuck’s and converted six existing Starbuck’s roasting shops into elegant, comfortable coffee houses. Starbucks coffee history was just was beginning to take shape.
Shultz exceeded his goal of one hundred and twenty-five stores in five years, in 1992 there were 165 cafés in operation. Today there are over 8,000 stores in 30 countries and annual revenues in excess of $7.5 billion.
© Copyright Randy Wilson, All Rights Reserved.
Randy works with his son on Ultimate Coffees Info. Randy owned and operated a very successful storefront/mailorder business from 1988 to 2003. Currently full time owner/operator of several online businesses.