Starbucks has announced a store that’s more than twice as large as any Starbucks that has come before—a roastery that will open in Chicago in 2019.
Starbucks opened its first store of this type in Seattle in 2015. Built to roast beans on site, it was then the world’s biggest Starbucks. We called the 15,000-square-foot hipster mecca of brass and mixed woods both “monstrous” and “gorgeous.” But perhaps the wildest conceit of it was this: It was no loss-lead flagship. Starbucks planned for it to break a profit–and it has, giving Starbucks a four-times return on its investment to date.