New York coffee lovers will no longer have to wait in long lines while baristas customize their grande soy milk, no whip, extra shot beverage. The popular coffee chain announced Friday that it will open two new types of stores to cater to busy and sophisticated caffeine addicts.
Starbucks plans to open an "express" store in Manhattan in 2015 that will feature mobile ordering and digital payments to get consumers in and out in a New York minute. The company says that the store will be small with a limited menu.
Starbucks also plans to open a reserve roastery in the trendy Capitol Hill neighborhood in Seattle this December. The 15,000-square-foot roastery will be the "first of its kind," and will include a store, a tasting room and a café where coffee lovers can learn more about coffee and order reserve blends like Geisha and Jamaica Blue Mountain. Starbucks spent over two years conceptualizing the tasting room that will build off of its premium coffees first launched ten years ago.
"Everything we have created and learned about coffee has led us to this moment," says Chief Executive Howard Schultz. "The Starbucks Reserve Roastery and Tasting room is a multi-sensory experience that will transform the future of specialty coffee."
The roastery will increase the company's reserve lineup to include 15 more offerings, expanding products to 1,500 locations worldwide. Reserve coffees are sold up to $50 for an 8-ounce package. Creating the new reserve roastery is an attempt to compete with high-end coffee sellers such as Blue Bottle Coffee and Stumptown Coffee Roasters. Both of these stores have treated the coffee experience to mirror that of wine tasting. Starbucks' express shops will compete with fast-food chains such as Dunkin Donuts and McDonalds.
The largest coffee chain also plans to open a minimum of 100 reserve-only cafes around the world in the next five years. "We plan to take this super premium experience to cities around the world," says Schultz.
Starbucks did not provide further comments about the reserve-only stores and did not comment on how many express stores they plan to open. The coffee chain is on target to open approximately 1,500 new stores in fiscal 2014.
