Starbuckses That Aren't Company-Owned

This is more a "satisfy my curiosity" question than it is anything else, but in the Best Thing You've Eaten Lately thread, leek and pairs4life both allude to Starbucks stores which appear to be the same as all other Starbucks stores but which are not company-owned. I never knew any Starbucks stores were not company-owned! I thought that corporation's success was based on tight control and consistency through corporate-ownership of all locations. (I'm not including the locations within Barnes & Noble, Target and such, which do seem to be licensed rather than corporate-owned.)

Anyway--which are the locations in Chicagoland of some stealth Starbucks storefront stores that appear for all intents and purposes to be identical to other Starbucks stores, but are owned by independent franchisees rather than the company? I'd be interested in checking them out.

Palmer House & O'Hare Concourse B come to mind. I found out by asking for things like blonde or short cup,or the New Year refill for January mug and was told they didn't do that, only corporate stores did. This link may also have some info on non-corporate stores, but not necessarily locations. http://blogs.starbucks.com/blogs/custom ... tores.aspx

Thanks for that link, pairs4life. It is interesting. The Starbucks veep says, "A licensed [i.e., not company-owned] store provides Starbucks access to many locations that we would not have otherwise. For example, hospitals, colleges, airports and grocery stores..."

I am surprised to learn (or infer) from this that the Starbucks in the Feinberg Pavilion at Northwestern Hospital, for example, is likely a licensed (not company-owned) location.

Are there any Starbuckses that appear to be "normal" ones that are in fact licensed ones? For instance, will I be gobsmacked to learn that the Starbucks at Lincoln and Roscoe (just picking one at random) is owned by a licensee? Or are all licensee-owned Starbuckses "within" something else (like an airport, hospital, college, bookstore, Target, etc.)?

Maybe - all the ones in airports seem to be, as is the one in the Chase Bank building in the loop.

I have friend who was an early employee of Starbucks (I think #8). He has since retired, but for a while, it was his job to make sure all of the licensed locations were producing coffee that was up to Starbucks' standards. To achieve that goal, he invented a system where every brewing machine in every licensed location was connected via the internet to Starbucks HQ. All of the parameters of the machines could be adjusted in real time (water temp, timings, etc.) to make sure the product was consistent. There was also another division that sold coffee to places like airlines and other locations that didn't necessarily brew individual drinks, but brewed and served Starbucks coffee from normal drip style coffee pots.

stevez wrote:I have friend who was an early employee of Starbucks (I think #8). He has since retired, but for a while, it was his job to make sure all of the licensed locations were producing coffee that was up to Starbucks' standards. To achieve that goal, he invented a system where every brewing machine in every licensed location was connected via the internet to Starbucks HQ. All of the parameters of the machines could be adjusted in real time (water temp, timings, etc.) to make sure the product was consistent. There was also another division that sold coffee to places like airlines and other locations that didn't necessarily brew individual drinks, but brewed and served Starbucks coffee from normal drip style coffee pots.

Interesting the extraordinary lengths to which they go to achieve consistency! You have to admire that (or, at least, I do) no matter how much you may resist the Evil Empire.

If they had only put that effort into ensuring their product was consistently good ...