Humble Beginnings - The First Starbucks Store

Humble Beginnings - The First Starbucks Store(dustincurtis.com)

35 points by lsternlicht 16 years ago | 10 comments

timr 16 years ago |

Unfortunately, the story behind Starbucks is a bit more complicated than it seems from this -- the original Starbucks was a humble enterprise.

The Starbucks that launched wasn't really intended to be a coffeehouse, so much as a local boutique bean retailer. The grandiose plans for world domination didn't form until Howard Schultz took over, years later. By then, the founders were long gone. That's not meant to take away from the whole "humble beginning" motif, but the Starbucks story is more realistically told as that of a savvy businessman buying a moderately successful local business from his former bosses, and making the brand much bigger than the founders could manage.

ynniv 16 years ago | |

Like McDonalds, Coca-Cola, and QDOS (Microsoft), the real riches came when a savvy businessman took an entrepreneurial effort and scaled it into a latent market. Unfortunate for those of us who like the cultural minutia of "local" business, but important to remember when building your startup.

dkasper 16 years ago |

Well technically, the actual first Starbucks store doesn't exist anymore.

The location was at the corner of Virginia and Pike Place, where this first-ever Starbucks was in business until January of 1977, when it moved to its current "original" store one block south. The current store in the Market is actually the sixth one, since there were stores in University Village, Capitol Hill, Edmonds, and Bellevue, along with the original-original, before the present Market Starbucks opened.

http://crosscut.com/2008/04/09/starbucks/13251/

hvs 16 years ago |

That's weird, I was just thinking this about Starbucks the other day. It wasn't started with the thought, "We are going to be the largest coffee business in the world!" It was more likely started with the thought, "Americans drink shit coffee, I want to show them what good coffee tastes like." It really is difficult to know which ideas will gain critical mass to become world-changers.

hazzen 16 years ago |

This article should also note Starbucks is experimenting with moving back towards "local" coffee houses[1]. I'm sure someone who currently lives in Seattle can give more information on how well this process is being received (instead of my own knowledge, which is that of someone who used to live in Seattle and follows local issues still), but I have a very low opinion of the strategy. I would prefer my local coffeeshop to be local, not appear local but fund a company that probably doesn't care what happens in the neighbourhood.

[1]: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2009479123_s...

throw_away 16 years ago | |

There was a big brouhaha about the 15th street store because it looks so similar to smith, the pub next door. The fact that it's starbucks, but doesn't say that it's starbucks (they do say that they serve starbucks coffee, which no indy coffee shop would advertise), and the apparent copying of their neighbor left a bad taste in the mouths of many seattlites.

I've never been in, but I wonder why they chose Seattle as the test-bed for this sort of thing. There are so many cities that don't have a vibrant local coffee-shop culture (there are at least three indy shops within a two block radius of my apartment & the mom&pop convenience store across the street has an espresso machine). Why not try it out someplace where the consumers aren't as discriminating and aren't as likely to resent them for doing this?

10ren 16 years ago |

An inspiring thought, but was it Starbucks or the wave that did it? (see http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=956570)

I'm not (just) being provocative. I'm not even sure how you'd go about determining what caused the "Starbucks revolution", or even that it's possible to be certain about historical causation (as some history academics have suggested).

stepherm 16 years ago |

I walk past this Starbucks nearly every day going to and from work. Too bad it's always a madhouse of tourists.

rykov 16 years ago | |

and the madhouse always blocks the sidewalk because street performers choose that storefront as a primo spot

mcantelon 16 years ago |

Summary: the jouney of a thousand miles starts with a single step!