Italy is to get its first-ever Starbucks, leading the firm’s chairman to assure outraged locals: “We are not coming here to teach Italians how to make coffee”.
The Milan branch, housed in a historic former post office in Piazza Cordusio, will be the chain’s largest outlet in Europe when it opens in September, employing around 150 workers.
For its first venture in a country which considers itself the gold standard of coffee, the US-based firm, which has more than 27,000 outlets around the world, is proceeding with tangible caution.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
“We're coming here with humility and respect, to show what we've learned,” executive chairman Howard Schulz said at a conference in Milan on Monday.
The Italian opening represents a kind of full circle for Schulz, who says he was inspired to start up the coffee chain after a visit to the city in 1983. “My imagination was captured by Italian coffee,” he said.
However, “Starbucks has a battle on its hands to make sure its arrival doesn't leave a bitter taste in the mouths of Italian coffee lovers”, who guzzle down six billion espressos every year, says The Local.
The main challenge will be convincing Italian coffee drinkers, used to gulping down their drink at a counter on their way, to open their minds to the more drawn-out Starbucks experience.
Starbucks is a sort of “public lounge”, Milano Today told its readers, “where you can stop to eat, but also relax, work and chat”.
Italy has long been resistant to the incursion of foreign takeaway chains. The nation’s first McDonald’s opened in Rome amid much controversy in 1985, years after the golden arches had arrived in most other Western European nations.
The move to Italy proved “especially difficult”, says LifeinItaly.com. Fashion designer Valentino, headquartered a few doors away, “sued the chain, maintaining the smell of their fries was ruining his clothes”.
Continue reading for free
We hope you're enjoying The Week's refreshingly open-minded journalism.
Subscribed to The Week? Register your account with the same email as your subscription.
-
'Accepting defeat is Rishi Sunak's only hope of victory'Instant Opinion Opinion, comment and editorials of the day
-
Royal family website attacked by Russian hackers
Speed Read Pro-Kremlin group claim responsibility just two weeks after King Charles condemns invasion of Ukraine
-
Larry the cat: how chief mouser 'won the nation's hearts'
Why Everyone's Talking About Downing Street says resident pet is 'healthy' despite reports of contingency plans for his death
-
Silvio Berlusconi’s death triggers real-life Succession drama
feature How the five children of Italy’s former prime minister will divide his estate and business assets is a matter of much speculation
-
How would Italy’s ‘parallel currency’ work?
Speed Read Deputy prime minister hints at nuclear fiscal option in defiant riposte to EU ultimatum
-
Monte dei Paschi bailout looms as Italy approves €20bn banks rescue plan
Speed Read World's oldest bank expected to announce it has failed to raise €5bn from the private sector
