The weather is finally starting to cool down as the massively overrated sweatfest that is summer comes to a close, and pale grown up indoor kids like myself across the country are rejoicing. Fall approaches, and with it the changing leaves, clothing that flatters a less-than-rock-hard body, and warm, steaming mugs of fall-flavored hot beverages are settling back in. As far as the hot mug-filler of choice, there is perhaps no greater fall juggernaut than the pumpkin spice latte, itself a creation of the larger Starbucks juggernaut, in sort of a coffee Krang situation.
Starbucks at this point is a bonafide cornerstone of American day-to-day life, but it started a long time ago as a small coffee supply shop christened with a much creepier looking mermaid. Let’s take a look at how a Seattle bean shop became a dominant global business.
The First Starbucks
Three University of San Francisco students and brewed beverage enthusiasts, Jerry Baldwin, Zev Siegl, and Gordon Bowker, decided to start a coffee shop. Wanting a name that started with “st” to follow some sort of marketing good juju that Bowker believed in, they brainstormed until settling on Starbuck, taken from a character in Moby Dick.
It might be surprising to you, but in the beginning, Starbucks did not serve coffee. It was just a roastery and coffee supply store. Should you want to turn their beans to brew, you’d have to do it on your own time. As for their roasting chops, the three actually took inspiration from another, older business, one that still exists today, though it’s been roundly leapfrogged by Starbucks: Peet’s Coffee & Tea, started by Alfred Peet. Can’t feel great, basically giving away the equivalent of a hamburger recipe to a clown you would later discover was Ronald McDonald.