More Starbucks’ Stores Are Offering Wine And Beer

When you walk into a Starbucks store, you smell coffee beans as they brew and hear the sound of the espresso machine. However, some stores offer an additional experience. Starbucks Evenings is an additional menu of items available at night at some locations.It features wine, beer and small plates, and it is now available in 29 stores around the country. Whether you’re earning an online baking certificate or are a regular customer, you may be curious about the company’s move.

The start of the evening menu
The Starbucks Evenings menu hit a handful of stores over the course of several years. The first conversion took place at the Olive Way location in Seattle. In summer of 2012, the company tested the new menu in the Midwest, making the Streets of Woodfield store in Schaumburg IL the first to serve alcohol in Chicagoland. According to Huntington Beach Independent, store number 29 opened in the Seacliff Village store in southern California in the first week of 2014. Starbucks Evenings is now available in every region of the U.S.

Complications of serving alcohol
Expanding the market to include alcohol may bring in more business, but it comes with considerations. Where most stores hired workers – called “partners” by the company – that were 18 and older, Evenings stores can only bring on those who are at least 21. Baristas in Starbucks work every position in the store, from taking your order to making your coffee to cleaning up when you leave. Therefore, no one under 21 could be allowed to work in an environment where they would be required to serve alcohol.

Starbucks also has to be licensed to serve alcohol and all employees need both town and state certification. For example, Schaumburg partners were trained and certified to serve in Illinois and then had to be given a license from the Village of Schaumburg.

Store structure
Starbucks Evenings stores still operate similarly to a traditional location. Customers can order their espresso all day but can only get alcohol after 4 p.m. They also make their order the same way. There are no waiters and those who get food still wait at the receiving end of the line to get their items. Furthermore, alcohol can only be consumed in the store.

Customer reactions
Reactions to the Starbucks Evenings menu have been mixed, ranging from excitement to indifference.

“I don’t really see a problem with this,” Joe, Carchio, Huntington Beach Councilman, told the source. “If it means that they feel that they can increase their business that way and they think they can maintain it, it’s OK with me.”