U.S. coffee house chain Starbucks Corp. is introducing wines, craft beer and small dinner dishes to more stores seeing a huge potential from drawing in the evening crowd aside from its regular coffee drinkers, USA Today reported.
The paper said the initiative, which Starbucks first announced in 2010, began last week at two dozen new locations across the United States but the company expects several hundred stores to sell alcoholic beverages having already applied liquor licences for those. Business Insider said Starbucks plans to expand the concept to 2,00 stores in the next five years.
USA Today said Starbucks, which has 12,000 stores in the United States, expects the concept, called Evenings, to add $1 billion in annual sales by 2019. It added that this will be rolled out in Denver, Miami, Orlando and Northern California markets and a Brooklyn store it plans to be the testing ground for new ideas. The concept was initially introduced by Starbucks in 2010 in Washington state, Oregon, Los Angeles, Chicago, Florida, and Atlanta.
Business Insider said the Seattle-based coffee chain started with 76 stores offering alcoholic drinks, and that it had been opposed by local businesses.
USA Today reported that Starbucks had been cautious in its experiment, mindful of concerns that regular patrons might be turned off by the idea that the coffee shop will turn into a bar. However, its market study showed that 70 percent of customers are also wine drinkers, which makes the company confident in expanding the concept.
USA Today noted that Starbucks is not the first quick service restaurant to try adding alcoholic drinks to their menu with Burger King, Sonic and Taco Bell all having spiked their offerings with liquor, but the coffee house's plan is the widest yet.
The report added that Starbucks may redesign stores with the Evenings concept to reflect its new line-up of drinks. As for the liquor list, the company said it will choose drinks that are produced locally. The company's baristas will also be trained in wine and beer the same way they are schooled on coffee.
