- Starbucks store at Wrigleyville in Chicago
Seattle, 2017-Apr-10 — /EPR Retail News/ — Chicago is a city of neighborhoods. From the glamorous Gold Coast to the museums of the Magnificent Mile, each community has a personality all its own.
One of the most celebrated is Wrigleyville – home of Wrigley Field and the Chicago Cubs. For more than 100 years, baseball fans have enjoyed games in this walkable, lively neighborhood, with buildings so close to the stadium that fans can watch the games from nearby rooftops.
Starbucks has had a presence in Wrigleyville for more than 20 years, and is now a part of its next chapter with the opening of a Starbucks store anchored in the new Park at Wrigley. In addition to its core menu, the new location will take influence from its Seattle Starbucks Reserve® Roastery with an immersive coffee bar where baristas bring the craft of coffee to life through brewing techniques such as Clover, pour-over, coffee press, nitro taps, Chemex, Siphon and Black Eagle manual espresso. Starbucks stores with a Reserve coffee bar will make up 20 percent of the company’s store portfolio globally over time.
“We wanted the design to be authentic to the community and to the heritage of baseball in Chicago,” said Claudine Lostao, director of store design for Starbucks in the Midwest and Mid America. “The richness of the leather and stitching details at the Reserve Bar are inspired by the game.”
Upon entry, customers are drawn in by the 68-foot long curving wood beams that start at the top of the front doors and lead the eye through the length of the space to the bar, which takes center stage as the theatre of coffee art within the space. On warm days, glass doors open up onto the adjacent open-air park which will host community festivals and farmers markets. The design team also paid tribute to the home team in the details, such as custom chairs with red baseball stitching and under-counter lighting at the bar that can glow red or blue.
The artistic focal point of the space is a 45-foot custom mural by artist Shogo Ota called “Coffee People,” which depicts the people behind coffee’s journey from farm to cup. Ota has created other similar coffee pieces for Starbucks green cup last November and the wooden doors at the Starbucks store in Ferguson, Mo.
“Wrigleyville is a community with a deep sense of history,” Lostao said. “We wanted to celebrate the spirit of the neighborhood as well as the game of baseball.”
Starbucks in Chicago
Starbucks opened its first store in Chicago in 1987, and is at the forefront of new Starbucks® experiences with distinctive stores on Michigan Avenue and fashion retailer UNIQLO. In the past year, Starbucks has also opened an express format store at Union Station, stores with Starbucks Reserve bars in Lake Forest and Wicker Park, and a new store and training center on Chicago’s South Side, to create opportunities for local jobs and provide job skills and training to youth.
Chicago will be also one of the first to showcase a new Starbucks Reserve® store format, none of which exist yet today. The store, which is slated to open in the next year, will integrate the theater and romance of the Starbucks Reserve® Roastery with the unique culinary experience of its Italian food partner, Princi.
MEDIA CONTACT:
Global
Phone: 206 318 7100
Email: press@starbucks.com
SOURCE: Starbucks Corporation
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