Starbucks does most of its business in the mornings, according to a CNNMoney report.
The addition of beer and wine is in response to customers telling Starbucks that they want more options for relaxing in the stores in the afternoon and evenings. It reflects [image-nocss] what Starbucks has learned from its "learning lab" stores, 15th Avenue Coffee & Tea and Roy Street Coffee & Tea, also in Seattle, it said.
"We hope to continue to learn from our experience at Olive Way and then consider bringing this concept to select stores in neighborhoods where it is relevant," the company said in a statement.
The new design also features reclaimed and local materials as well as work from local artists. It is Starbucks' 21st store worldwide to be either Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design (LEED) registered or certified.
Meanwhile. Starbucks is telling its baristas to slow down, which may result in longer lines.
Amid customer complaints that the Seattle-based coffee chain has reduced the fine art of coffee making to a mechanized process with all the romance of an assembly line, Starbucks baristas are being told to stop making multiple drinks at the same time and focus instead on no more than two drinks at a timestarting a second one while finishing the first, according to company documents cited by The Wall Street Journal.
Baristas are also supposed to steam milk for each drink rather than steaming an entire pitcher to be used for several beverages. Other instructions include rinsing pitchers after each use; staying at the espresso bar instead of moving around; and using only one espresso machine instead of two, according to the documents.
Starbucks said the changeswhich it expects to roll out nationwide and across Canada by next monthare part of its ongoing effort to make stores operate more efficiently.
The company insists the new procedures will eventually hasten the way drinks are made and lead to fresher, hotter drinks. Steaming milk for individual drinks, for example, "ensures the quality of the beverage in taste, temperature and appearance," the company documents state, while focusing on just two drinks at a time "reduces possibility for errors."
When asked whether changes have created longer lines in the test markets, Starbucks spokesperson Trina Smith told the Journal that she did not have "that level of detail."
The documents acknowledge that customers ordering no-foam lattes may have to wait longer for their drinks, and instructs employees to "let the customer know their beverage will take a little longer and may be out of order due to the time it takes the milk to settle and the foam to rise to the top (approximately 60 seconds)."
Customers have indicated that the quality of espresso drinks at Starbucks is "average" and that the beverages are inconsistently prepared from barista to barista and from store to store, the documents said.
Over the last few years, Starbucks has been applying to the coffee counter the kind of "lean" manufacturing techniques car makers have long used as a way to streamline production, eliminate wasteful activity and speed up service, said the report. The company has deployed a "lean team" to study every move its baristas make in order to shave seconds off each order.
That team discovered that many stores kept beans below the counter, leading baristas to waste time bending over to scoop beans, so those stores ended up storing the beans in bins on the top of the counter. To boost the freshness of the coffee and to bring back some of the "theater" that had been lost, the baristas also started grinding beans for each batch of coffee, instead of grinding the day's beans in the morning.
Baristas say it can take anywhere from 30 seconds to a minute to make an espresso-based drink, depending on the complexity of the drink and the barista's skill. In the documents cited by the newspaper, Starbucks said one of the goals of the new drink-making method is to produce beverages "at a more consistent pace."
The company has made numerous changes to its business amid the economic downturn, including closing underperforming stores, trimming its number of bakery suppliers, boosting the perks of its loyalty-card program and introducing new varieties of its Via instant coffee, the report said.
Seattle-based Starbucks has more than 12,000 locations in the United States and Canada, about 5,000 more worldwide.
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