Starbucks Reserve Roastery & Tasting Room, Seattle
Design Credit:
Designed in house by the Starbucks Team under Liz Mueller
The Starbucks Roastery and Tasting Room is the ultimate flagship store for the brand.
Celebrating the 43rd Anniversary of the first Starbucks store on Pike Place, Seattle, the new Roastery opened at the beginning of December 2014, after two years of design development.
The ethos behind the concept is pure ‘Anti Big’; rejecting the corporate rollout of standardised product and environment in favour of the unique, artisanal and theatrical.
The 15,000 sq ft Roastery in the Capitol Hill neighbourhood, nine blocks from the original store, represents everything that Starbucks now aspires to; location specific design with a unique heritage, ethical and artisanal construction that is anti corporate in feel and a ‘prove it’ approach to product provenance that turns coffee into a theatrical event.
This is without doubt the best looking coffee shop on the planet. It’s got open roasting, a coffee library and tubes of coffee beans flying around the space. The building is part of the story too; an old Packard car dealership from the 1920s with gorgeous Art Deco elements that have been lovingly preserved.
As its name suggests, the two industrial sized coffee roasters sit at the heart of the store.
Here, green beans from ethically sourced small batches are roasted instore, passing along copper tubes to the Cafe bar, where customers can choose their coffee from a variety of brewing methods Clover Brewed, Pour-Over, Cold Brew and Coffee Press.
There is also a Serious Pie restaurant from local chef Tom Douglas.
The design has been overseen by inhouse creative Liz Mueller, who was the driving force behind the fantastic Starbucks the Bank in Amsterdam.
The store has the same focus on locally sourced materials and craftsmen to create an interior that is crafted and unique. This is also reflected in the product aspiration; with a focus on rare and hard to find blends.
The store will be the sole producer of all Starbucks Reserve coffee beans. As of 2015, the company has also committed to the ethical sourcing of 100 percent of Starbucks coffee..
