The world's largest Starbucks store has officially arrived in Chicago. The coffeemaker on Friday threw open the doors of its largest Roastery in Chicago Magnificent Mile neighbourhood. The store was first announced in 2017 and is replacing a former Crate and Barrel location in the city.
The Chicago property is Starbucks' sixth roastery location. It now has roasteries in Chicago, Seattle, Shanghai, Milan, New York, and Tokyo. The roastery comes at a time when Starbucks is increasingly trying to come up with a new concept store to attract more footfalls and serve the patronized customers of its brand. The price of an espresso at the Chicago property will cost $4.50
The five-story coffee store is spread across a sprawling 35,000 square feet. It takes over the Tokyo Roastery, company's largest location till now. The store in the capital of Japan is spread across 32,200 square feet.
Understandably, it is a giant leap for the coffee giant, which has been going from strength over the past few quarters amid weakening restaurant and beverage sales in the United States. Starbucks opened its first coffee store in Chicago in 1987 and now has over 800 stores in Chicago with more than 8,000 employees working. Naturally, Chicago was the obvious choice for the company to open its largest store in the world.
Centrally located in the store is a 56-foot steel cask that stores coffee beans. The new store employs 188 workers, which it calls "partners", and will be roasting a staggering 200,000 pounds of coffee every year.
Roastery part of bigger plans
Starbucks Reserve Roasteries attract an average of 8,000 visitors on a daily basis. The coffeehouse chain plans to make the roastery a tourist attraction and the launch of the store comes just two weeks ahead on Thanksgiving Day, which also marks the beginning of the all-important holiday season.
The coffee chain and coffee maker has been constantly stressing on addressing its patronized customers' convenience both in delivery and quality of product. The Chicago Roastery will take around 12-15 minutes to roast the beans. It comes as part of the company efforts towards coming up with innovative concepts.
Earlier this month, they opened its first Pickup Store in New York City's Penn Plaza. The store has been designed especially to give a streamlined experience to customers who place their order online.
