World’s largest Starbucks to open Friday

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 14/11/2019 (2145 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

CHICAGO — The largest Starbucks in the world opens Friday in the Windy City.

The location opens at 9 a.m. on the Magnificent Mile as the company’s sixth and final Reserve Roastery, an immersive, theatrical experience dedicated to roasting and brewing small-batch coffee from around the world.

Somewhere between a shrine to beans and a Willy Wonka’s of coffee, the Reserve Roastery features three coffee bars, a cocktail bar and a selection of food from Italian bakery Princi — each with a distinctive Chicago flavour.

The Chicago instalment joins existing locations in New York, Tokyo, Shanghai, Milan, and Seattle, which opened the first Reserve Roastery in 2014.

Why did Starbucks choose Chicago?

This isn’t the first time Chicago has laid claim to the world’s largest Starbucks or a company first.

The Seattle chain opened its first store outside the Pacific Northwest in Chicago in 1987. Then, in 1993, Starbucks built its first airport location in O’Hare International.

In 1995, Starbucks built a 4,000-square-foot location on Rush Street that was the largest at the time.

“This roastery is a representation of the relationship that Starbucks has had with the city of Chicago,” CEO Kevin Johnson said Tuesday. “Chicago has been a market where we innovate and try new things.”

The Reserve Roastery employs nearly 200 people, many recruited from Starbucks locations across the country. It occupies the five-storey, approximately 35,000-square-foot Crate & Barrel building on the corner of North Michigan Avenue and Erie Street.

“For us, this is really a dream. The building history here is very unique,” Johnson said.

Originally constructed in 1990, the white building was a longtime facet of the city’s Magnificent Mile. Jill Enomoto, vice-president of roastery design and concept for Starbucks, said designers played off the building’s natural light and structure. The Reserve Roastery’s 17-metre-high steel cask, which holds and transfers beans, runs straight up the middle of the building’s glass atrium as long, thin, winding rods transport coffee to each of the bars throughout the rectangular structure.

“All your senses — your sights, your smells, your sound — is wonderful in a building like this,” said Crate & Barrel founder Gordon Segal, who collaborated on the project with former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz.

The Reserve Roastery dedicates a “love letter” to Chicago on the fourth floor.

“Chicago, you inspire us. Your people, your city, your architecture, your music, your art. Your neighbourhoods and communities,” the wall art reads. “Thank you.”

What can visitors eat and drink?

Unlike other Starbucks locations, which serve coffee blends, the Reserve Roastery serves only rare coffees, roasted on-site in small batches.

The new location is expected to roast 90,700 kilograms per year, in 11-kg batches. On the ground floor, visitors can observe the coffee-roasting process and sample classic espresso drinks from the Reserve Coffee Bar. As the roasters prepare the beans, visitors can see in real time where they originated from as an old-fashioned clack board updates the locations. Visitors also can ride in the Midwest’s first curved escalator, which offers a 360-degree tour of the roasting and brewing below.

— USA Today