Starbucks officially entered the Italian coffee market and will open a coffee roaster workshop in Milan this Friday (September 7th). The new roastery will operate out of a converted post office in Palazzo della Poste on the Piazza Cordusio. Howard Schultz, Founder of Starbucks, credits a trip to Milan in 1983 for inspiring the company that became Starbucks.

The beautiful coffee shop is 25,000 square feet and boasts marble countertops, Italy-inspired architecture, multiple coffee bars, an actual bar with alcohol, an affogato station, and much more. If you stop by for a pour-over coffee, you just might linger for hours.

Starbucks’s former CEO Howard Schultz assures people that Starbucks doesn’t want to step on any toes.  “We are not coming here to teach Italians how to make coffee, we’re coming here with humility and respect, to show what we’ve learned,” he said last year. ”  This store will be the culmination of a great dream of mine.” And it’s a dream for any Starbucks-lover, too.

The roastery and café will employee nearly 300 workers, including baristas, bakers, mixologists and coffee roasters.Employees say the roastery is a celebration of Italian coffee culture and artisanal food from Princi, but also a showcase of next-level coffee art and innovation.

The opening also offers a full-circle moment for both Howard Schultz, chairman emeritus of Starbucks, and the newest partners alike – a crescendo steeped in sacrifice, tears, passion and the kind of lore rarely found outside Italian opera. Including the aria, the grandmothers, the epicenter, the tears, the sacrifice, the Melody and the Poste Italiane

Partner Alessandro Todaro from Palermo in southern Italy says  “I’m making my second family here,  I can’t wait for people to see a different kind of Starbucks and the coffee inspired by Italy.”

Source: Starbucks