Outside the Beltway

Starbucks To Expand Alcohol Sales

Doug Mataconis
12

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Starbucks

You may soon be able to get beer or wine along with your caffeine from your local Starbucks:

Starbucks will expand its evening alcohol and light bites menu, which includes bacon-wrapped dates and Malbec wine, to thousands of stores, Chief Operating Officer Troy Alstead said in a phone interview. The rollout will take several years, he said.

“We’ve tested it long enough in enough markets — this is a program that works,” he said. “As we bring the evening program to stores, there’s a meaningful increase in sales during that time of the day.”

It isn’t clear where these stores will be located, although it will likely be easier for the company to get the license(s) needed to sell beer and wine in some states rather than others. Additionally, I tend to doubt that you’ll be able to get beer or wine at 6am instead of your Venti Dark Roast.

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12 responses to “Starbucks To Expand Alcohol Sales”

  1. CB Avatar
    CB

    Mmmmm Irish coffee.

  2. john personna Avatar
    john personna

    I give you … The Women’s Petition Against Coffee (1674)

    Some of our Sots pretend tippling of this boiled Soot cures them of being Drunk; but we have reason rather to conclude it makes them so, because we find them not able to stand after it: ‘Tis at best but a kind of Earthing a Fox to hunt him more eagerly afterward: A rare method of good-husbandry, to enable a man to be drunk three times a day!

    and

    So once more they troop to the Sack-shop till they are drunker than before; and then by a retrograde motion, stagger back to Soberize themselves with Coffee: thus like Tennis Balls between two Rackets, the Fopps our Husbands are bandied to and fro all day between the Coffee-house and Tavern, whilst we poor souls sit mopeing all alone till Twelve at night, and when at last they come to bed finoakt like a Westphalia Hogs-head we have no more comfort of them, than from a shotten Herring or a dried Bulrush; which forces us to take up this Lamentation and sing ,,,

    more here

  3. rudderpedals Avatar
    rudderpedals

    It’s a slippery slope to hard likker and a Barbucks on every corner.

  4. al-Ameda Avatar
    al-Ameda

    Starbucks is on a roll – open carry of weapons is okay (I know what they’ve said, but …) and now they’ll serve alcohol too? What’s next – marijuana sales, to complement their cookies and pastry offerings?

  5. greg Avatar
    greg

    @CB: first thing that came to my mind too 😉

  6. Tyrell Avatar
    Tyrell

    I read Mr. Howard Schultz’ s very good book a few years ago. They had problems and had to close hundreds of stores. Part of the problem was way over expansion. The other was that they seemed to have gotten away from their original mission of focusing on coffee. Hopefully they won’t repeat those mistakes. A store in a close town had only been there about 14 months and they pulled the plug. A lot of people complained that it was not given a chance, signed petitions, and everything. Not far from here there are two Starbucks within sight of each other; one is in a store. We would like to have one in our town, but it probably won’t happen. So I will have to be content with convenience store or McD’s coffee. The alcohol drink sales in a Starbucks is news to me. Our county is one of those places that doesn’t allow any alcohol. People have to drive across the county line if they want it; probably some of the same people who voted against it being sold here.

  7. qtip Avatar
    qtip

    “A one-Starbucks town” is one of my favorite expressions.

  8. Tyrell Avatar
    Tyrell

    @qtip: A few years ago Jay Leno commented that let a Starbucks close and people complain like crazy. A huge factory closes and nobody says anything.

  9. Franklin Avatar
    Franklin

    So I take it that some of you have actually been in a Starbucks? What’s it like?

  10. qtip Avatar
    qtip

    @Franklin:

    In DC where I live, it’s variable. Sometimes friendly. Sometimes surly. Quite often containing a few mentally disturbed people hanging out for hours.

    I was recently in Chandler, AZ and there is was like Cheers. The baristas enthusiastically greeted a large percentage of customers by name.

  11. bill Avatar
    bill

    @al-Ameda: a well armed, hyped up semi-kinda drunk crowd on a sugar jag! what could go wrong?

  12. DrDaveT Avatar
    DrDaveT

    it will likely be easier for the company to get the license(s) needed to sell beer and wine in some states rather than others

    Uh, yeah — kind of like it’s easier to grow sugar cane in some states than others.

    Liquor laws are the last bastion of states’ rights. Anti-competitive and protectionist statutes that would be tossed out in a microsecond in any other sector are sacrosanct when it’s about Teh Likker.

    My favorite recent example from my home state of Virginia: the law that said in-state wineries could ship to your door but out-of-state wineries could not was (rightfully) struck down as a violation of the Interstate Commerce clause. Virginia therefor amended the law to say that ANY licensed Virginia importer, regardless of where they are located, can ship directly to a Virginia residence…

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