Starbucks Launches Fancy Italian-Influenced Reserve Store in Sodo

Starbucks has opened its flagship Reserve store on the ground floor of its Sodo headquarters (2401 Utah Ave S). It’s the first of 1,000 Reserve stores the coffee chain is planning worldwide. With high-end design touches similar to those of the Starbucks Reserve Roastery that opened on Capitol Hill in 2014, the Reserve store intends for customers to linger over Italian apertivo cocktails and baked goods from an attached 10,000-square-foot Princi bakery.

While it looks a lot like the Reserve Roastery, which serves small-batch coffee at fancy coffee bars surrounded by futuristic machinery, the Reserve store takes a slightly different tack and expands on the Roastery’s menu. New items at the massive Sodo cafe include lattes on nitro, spiced ginger cold brew, and a menu of espresso drinks like a Bianco Mocha. In an attempt to encourage patrons to extend their visits, there’s also a cocktail bar making Italian drinks like the classic Aperol spritz and the Negroni Sbagliato, which uses sparkling wine instead of gin.

Starbucks

Customers can also peer into the attached Princi bakery, where bread and pastries are baked fresh every day. The food menu from Princi also includes pizzas and focaccia sandwiches. The coffee giant inked a partnership with the Milan-based company in mid-2016 and rolled out the first Starbucks Princi menu at the Seattle Reserve Roastery in November 2017. Soon, Starbucks’ Roasteries and Reserve locations around the world will serve the same menu.

While the eventual goal is to open 1,000 of these fancy Reserve stores worldwide, Starbucks has only announced plans for a Chicago outpost as its second location. As for the Roasteries, the company launched a second in Shanghai last year and has four more planned for Milan, New York, Tokyo and Chicago over the next two years.