Schultz's huge vision: something more than selling coffee
Among the 2,500 or so new Starbucks stores to be mushrooming all over China within the next five years, there is one particular outlet that the world's largest coffee brand is pinning hopes on to sell something more than coffee.
The Starbucks Reserve Roastery in Shanghai, the second one of its kind after the inaugural store in its home market of Seattle, is scheduled to open late in 2017, with a whopping space of 30,000-square-foot (2,738 square meters), twice the size of its Seattle sister.
"We are making a huge financial bet on Shanghai, and what the roastery will represent. This is a part of investing ahead of the curve and is a demonstration to the world and our US shareholders," said Howard Schultz, the company's CEO, to China Daily.