Last week, Starbucks announced that it was telling its baristas to slow down when making customers' coffee. Today, USA Today (October 18, 2010), reported that Starbucks is announcing a major change to its brand, serving coffee in the mornings and wine and cheese in the evening.
Starbucks Remains a Destination
Starbucks has worked long and hard on its brand as a destination for morning coffee from the way they decorated their retail outlets to the easily recognized paper cup and the quality of its coffee products. The company is continuing the brand in the same theme but they are adding an evening destination alongside its morning persona.
It is a risky and costly attempt to increase evening traffic inside its stores which have felt the effects of competitors such as McDonald’s and Dunkin Donuts who have a quality product at a considerable lower price. With the recession lingering on, many consumers are more price conscious than ever before and deciding to buy their morning drinks at one of the lower priced companies.
Remaking the Starbucks Brand
According to the USA Today report, Starbucks is trying out its new remake at one of its locations in Seattle, Washington. The store has been redecorated along with many updates to the interior design, shelves full of wine and beer, a wine bar, and cheese trays in the pastry case have been added.
It will eventually be a hundred million dollar remake if the first location experiences the success hoped for by Starbucks and the company decides to update all of its locations. In addition to remaking each location into a wine bar, each site will be greened up. There are 16,000 units in the chain. In addition, reportedly, the chain “ranks among the most widely copied brands.”
“It’s the biggest undertaking of design of any retailer in the world. Each new company-owned store will be LEED certified, meaning it jumps through lots of green hoops to meet tough sustainability standards,” Arthur Rubinfeld, global developer chief at Starbucks was quoted in USA Today.
Starbucks Wants a Friendlier Face
One of the reasons for the remake is that Starbucks wants to look and be more a part of the neighborhood while maintaining its hip persona with a mix of sustainability. The company wants its loyal customer base to stop in the morning for coffee and conversation and then again in the evening for wine, beer, and conversation. Will it work?
No doubt the remake is a gamble. The Starbucks brand is so strong as it is so mixing it up by stepping out of its well-known product line is a risk. As with other changes, the company is spending the time and the money to make sure its baristas and other employees are well versed in serving beer and wine to customers.
Click here to read about Starbucks baristas.
