10 Unique Facts Regarding the Coffee Franchise on Every Street Corner: Starbucks
Are you the type of person who needs their daily cup of coffee to get through the day? Well, here are 10 unique facts everyone should know about the Starbucks franchise and its history.
Fact #1
Starbucks is currently the biggest coffee franchise in the world. As of the end of 2008, there are more than 16,226 Starbucks stores on the planet.
Fact #2
Starbucks was founded in 1971 in Seattle, Washington by Zev Siegl, Jerry Baldwin and Gordon Bowker.
Fact #3
The first Starbucks building outside of North America opened up in Tokyo in 1996.
Fact #4
On January 31, 2008, Starbucks stopping serving its warm breakfast sandwiches, because they wanted to refocus their advertising campaign on only coffee-related products.
Fact #5
In March 2008, the company stopped using pre-ground coffee beans. Their reason was to “bring aroma, romance and theater” to their stores by using whole beans instead.
Fact #6
Starting in May 2008, people with a Starbucks card were able to obtain free bonuses provided by the company. These included: 2 hours of free Wi-Fi internet service per day, free coffee refills, free tall beverages, free milk, and free syrup drink modifiers.
Fact #7
How did the name “Starbucks” come to exist? Well, the company is named in part after Starbuck, Captain Ahab’s first mate in the book Moby-Dick.
Fact #8
A Starbucks in Beijing, China was closed in July 2007 when a group of Chinese people complained that it was “trampling on Chinese culture.”
Fact #9
Starbucks has often been questioned regarding its business practices, such as placing several Starbucks buildings with a couple of blocks. This, in turn, has resulted in forcing smaller coffee franchises into bankruptcy.
Fact #10
In the 1990’s, Starbucks was opening a new store practically every day. This remarkable growth rate continued until the recent economic recession.
Closing Remarks
And those are 10 unique facts that you may or may not have known about the Starbucks franchise. It’s actually quite strange. When I was about 8 years old, I loved drinking coffee, but none of my friends did. My friends often questioned how my mother let me drink coffee at such a young age. Now, ten years later, I find that I’m not drinking nearly as much coffee as I used to. I’ll have the occasional cup once or twice a week, but that’s it. And now, most of my friends are obsessed with coffee, and I’m not.
Quite a turn of events, isn’t it?
2 Comments
All very interesting facts for coffee lovers. Did you know also that the idea for the Starbucks coffee bar was taken from a trip the founder of Starbucks took to Milan Italy. Here in Italy, coffee bars have been around since the 1800’s with one of the first ones opening up in Venice Italy. Venice was a place where ships arrived with products from all over the world and those that traveled on those ships hd discovered coffee in other lands ,brought it back and eventually developed their own form of coffee as espresso, along with coffee bars. In Italy, coffee bars have long been used as meeting places or a place to get together with friends.
post above omitted my triond credentials. Here they are ..