My love of coffee developed when I first went to work as head of marketing for the four stores of a small company in Seattle named Starbucks. That was in 1982. I didn’t truly discover coffee’s magic, however, until one year later on a business trip to Italy.
Strolling from my hotel, I popped into a small coffee bar.
“Buon giorno!” an older, thin man behind the counter greeted me, as if I were a regular. Moving gracefully and with precision, he seemed to be doing a delicate dance as he ground coffee beans, steamed milk, pulled shots of espresso, made cappuccinos, and chatted with customers standing side by side at the coffee bar. Everyone in the tiny shop seemed to know each other, and I sensed that I was witnessing a daily ritual.
I nodded and watched as he repeated the ritual for me, looking up to smile as the espresso machine hissed and whirred with purpose.
This is not his job, I thought, it’s his passion.
For a tall guy who grew up playing football in the schoolyards of Brooklyn, being handed a tiny white porcelain demitasse filled with dark coffee crafted just for me by a gracious Italian gentleman called a “barista” was nothing less than transcendent. This was so much more than a coffee break; this was theater. An experience in and of itself.
My bosses did not share my dream of recreating the Milan coffee bar experience in Seattle, so I left Starbucks and opened my own coffeehouses. I called my company Il Giornale.
In 1987, I found myself in a position to buy, with the support of a few investors, my former employer’s six stores and roasting plant. I merged them with my own stores and chose to keep the name Starbucks Coffee Company.
By the end of that year, we had eleven stores. By 2000, we had 2,600 stores in thirteen countries and revenue just shy of $2 billion. That year I decided to step down as CEO to become chairman, moving away from day-to-day operations to focus on Starbucks’ global strategy and expansion.
In 2006, as I visited hundreds of Starbucks stores in cities around the world, the entrepreneurial merchant in me sensed something intrinsic to Starbucks’ brand was missing. An aura. A spirit. The stores were lacking a certain soul.
It was with a heavy heart that, early one morning in February 2007, I sat at my long kitchen table in Seattle, alone, handwriting a confidential memo to Starbucks’ senior leaders. Outside, the morning would be dark for another two hours as rain drizzled down our kitchen windows. Rainy winter mornings like this one were ideal for contemplation.
I spelled out my concerns. New automatic espresso machines that we’d installed in our stores, while effectively increasing efficiency, were too tall, which kept baristas from engaging with customers in the same manner that had enchanted me back in Milan in 1982.
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