“With great humility and respect” Starbucks has announced it intends to open its first outlets in Italy in 2017. For Howard Schultz, who transformed the Seattle roaster from 17 stores focused on selling coffee beans into a global chain with more than 22,500 outlets, this latest opening is different. It was in Milan in 1983 that Schultz first experienced the theater of Italian espresso bars and conceived the notion of opening similar establishments in the United States: 34 years later Starbucks is coming to its spiritual home.
Italians see it differently. The announcement provoked predictable reactions—an affront to the nation’s coffee culture, another example of American imperialism—accompanied by the usual lament that Italy’s entrepreneurs failed to seize the opportunities created by its culinary genius. The fact that there are no coffee shop chains in Italy suggest they could be right.
Italian Origins
The typical Starbucks customer experience certainly has little in common with that of the average Italian coffee bar. Schultz realized that his first attempts to create a supposedly “authentic” Italian experience—coffee consumed standing up, prepared by baristas in bow ties with opera music in the background—needed to be translated into a more American approach. Jazz on the speakers, sofas to sit on, and, most importantly, a change of emphasis within the coffee menu were introduced.
