Starbucks Coffee Co.

Starbucks has debuted its in-store Reserve coffee bar concept in downtown Seattle.      The new store combines the educational aspects of the company’s Reserve Roastery format and its rare small-lot Reserve coffees within a traditional Starbucks setting, complete with such regular coffee and Frappuccinos.    It’s estimated that Starbucks locations with the Reserve bar will make up 20% of the company’s global store portfolio over time.   

It’s easier than ever for McDonald’s customers to order a Big Mac — and avoid long lines at service counters.   The fast-food chain began testing mobile ordering and payment functionality within its app at 29 restaurants in Monterey and Salinas, California, on Wednesday, March 15. Another 51 restaurants in Spokane, Washington, are slated to launch the service on March 20, according to Reuters.   

A month after revealing excessive digital orders caused in-store congestion and canceled orders, Starbucks has come up with a solution.  

Starbucks Coffee Company will open for business in Italy for the first time in late 2018.   The coffee giant plans to open a 25,500-sq.-ft. Reserve Roastery outpost in late 2018 in Milan, in the historic, turn-of-the-century post office building in the city’s center. The Milan Reserve Roastery will be the first Starbucks Roastery to open in the Europe, Middle East and Africa region, and the fifth, globally. It is the first of additional Starbucks stores the company plans to open in Italy.   

Starbucks is shuttering its remaining Evolution Fresh stores, but the brand will live on.   The coffee giant will close the two Evolution locations, both of which are in Seattle, but will continue to sell Evolution Fresh cold-press packaged juices in its coffee shops and at supermarkets. It also is launching new flavors.      Starbucks bought the brand in 2011, reportedly with an eye to rolling out stores nationwide. But it never grew beyond a handful of locations.  

1. The import tax wild card. The Trump administration has floated a new tax policy that would apply a 20% tax on imports from Mexico, as well as other countries with which the United States has a trade deficit. If implemented, this tax could have a disproportionally large negative impact on merchants that export much of the goods they sell — i.e., almost all of our readers.  

Starbucks has extended its social gifting promotions into China, where it has launched a major expansion program to double its stores within the next five years.      The coffee giant’s new “Say It With Starbucks” program, created by Starbucks and Weixin, China’s leading mobile social communications app, enables users to gift a Starbucks beverage or digital gift card via a social gifting platform.   

Starbucks Corp.’s plan to hire 10,000 refugees over the next five years (in its stores in 75 countries around the globe) has proved to be one of the socially progressive retailer’s most controversial moves to date.   The initiative, a response to President Trump’s executive order barring refugees from seven Muslim-majority countries, has many conservatives and Trump supporters calling for a boycott of the coffee chain.