Starbucks is a giant coffee house and bakery chain that has worldwide operations. Currently, the company has a total of 17,009 stores in 50 countries.

History

Starbucks was founded in March of 1971 in the city of Seattle, Washington, in the US. Three partners, Jerry Baldwin, Gordon Bowker and Zev Siegl, founded the business. The three got the inspiration to put up the business from entrepreneur Alfred Peet, who already had a line of coffee shops. The name Starbucks is taken from the Moby Dick story, where Starbuck was a first mate on the ship The Pequod.

In 1982, another partner joined the business in the person of Howard Schuiltz. He was appointed to retail operations and marketing. In 1984, Starbucks’ original owners (including Jerry Baldwin) purchased Peet’s (one of Starbucks’ major competitors). In April of 1986, Schultz started a new chain of coffee bars named Il Giornale. In 1987, the owners of Starbucks sold it to Schultz’ Il Giornale café. After the purchase, Shultz changed the name of his own café to Starbucks and immediately began implementing expansion programs. A number of Starbucks shops were opened in the area of Vancouver (in British Columbia) and the city of Chicago (in Illinois). By the time the company was opened to the public, there were already about 165 shops.

In 1998, Starbucks ventured into the retail market when it started selling its products in grocery stores under the brand Starbucks. In that same year, the company launched its own website, Starbucks.com.

Starbucks entered the UK with an acquisition of the Seattle Coffee Company, a UK-based coffeehouse and retailer. The 60-outlet chain of shops was then renamed Starbucks. In 2002, Starbucks opened its first shops in the Latin Americas, particularly in Mexico City. A year after, the company expanded to Peru. In 2010, Starbucks opened its first store in San Salvador and in March of 2011, Starbucks opened its first store in Guatemala City. In the succeeding years, Starbucks continued to expand its operations to other countries, including the Philippines, UAE, Australia, Malaysia, Thailand and New Zealand. Currently, almost all of Starbucks shops offer the convenience of free Wi-Fi, which adds to the shops’ appeal to customers. Today, there are more than 17,000 Starbucks shops. They offer products like whole-bean coffee, made-to-order (mostly coffee based) beverages, baked goods, Frappuccino and many more.

Headquarters: Seattle, Washington(main headquarters)
Ownership Type: public
Employees: 137,000 (worldwide)
Geography: worldwide
Demography: coffee lovers and retail bakery goods consumers

Brands
Starbucks

Important links
Starbucks Corporate Home Page
Products
Starbucks Store Locator
Jobs and Careers
Starbucks Contact Information