Pour Your Heart Into It (7 page)

We flew out for a weekend and once again, spring was at its peak, with the azaleas in full bloom and explosions of color bursting all over the city. Sheri liked Seattle, liked Starbucks, and was thrilled to see the Baldwins again, who were warm and generous with their time and advice. They knew volumes about food and wine, had interesting stories to tell of their world travels, and shared their knowledge about a wide range of subjects we were just beginning to explore. Sheri came back as certain as I was that this was the right thing to do.

Both of us recognized, though, that moving to Seattle would mean a career sacrifice for Sheri. New York was a world center for interior design, and Seattle far from it. But in the back of her mind she had always expected to move out of the city some day. She wanted to have children and raise them in a different environment. Few women would have willingly given up a promising career to move 3,000 miles, to a city where they didn’t know a soul, because their husband wanted to join a small coffee company. But she didn’t hesitate. She supported me 100 percent, as she’s always done. That constant encouragement has been vital for me.

Although I was eager to start work at Starbucks, I decided to take some time off first. On a shoestring budget, we rented a small cottage for the summer in the Hamptons, where we had met. We were married in July and enjoyed the romantic interlude.

Our plan was to pack up our Audi and drive 3,000 miles across the country, with our golden retriever in the back seat. We were to leave in mid-August and would arrive in Seattle by Labor Day weekend.

We had already started loading the car to leave the following day when my mother called with terrible news: My father had lung cancer and was expected to live only a year. I was shaken to the core. He was only sixty years old, and my brother, Michael, was still in college. It would be a harsh struggle with a devastating disease. My mother had come to rely on my strength. How could she get through this period with me in Seattle?

It was one of those moments when you feel like you’re being ripped into two jagged pieces. I had already committed to be in Seattle by the beginning of September. Yet how could I leave now? I discussed it with my family, and it seemed I had no choice. I had to go.

I went to see my dad in the hospital. I had to say good-bye to him, not knowing when or if I’d see him again. My mother sat at his bedside, crying. She was frightened, but she tried hard not to show it. It might have been the moment for a heart-to-heart with my father, but we had never developed that sort of relationship.

“Go to Seattle,” my dad said. “You and Sheri have a new life to start there. We can handle things here.”

As I sat with him, two emotions were warring in my heart—overwhelming sadness and unresolved bitterness. My father had never been a good provider for the family. He had stumbled through a series of mind-numbing jobs, always chafing against the system. And now his life might be ending, before he had taken control of it.

I squeezed his hand and said an awkward good-bye.

“I don’t know how I’m going to do this,” I said to my mother as we waited for the elevator.

“Howard, you have to go,” she insisted.

I felt as if I were sinking, as all the strength and energy and optimism seeped out of my body.

When the elevator came, my mother gave me a hug and said firmly, “You must go.”

I stepped inside, and as I turned, I saw my mother’s puffy red face, bravely trying to smile. As soon as the doors clicked shut, I fell apart.

Sheri and I kept to our plan of driving to Seattle, but a cloud of worry and dread traveled with us. I called home at every stop. Gradually we learned that my father’s prognosis was better than we thought. The tension eased, and we could throw our hearts into creating a new life together in this city we had barely started to explore.

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We got to Seattle in the midst of a lively annual outdoor arts and music festival called Bumbershoot. The mood was upbeat and wild and adventurous.

We had picked out a house in the Capitol Hill part of Seattle with a big deck, but because it wasn’t ready, we spent that first week with the Baldwins. They pampered us, cooking gourmet dinners every night, driving Sheri around the city. They even put up with Jonas, our 100-pound golden retriever, who took to swimming in their pool.

Although it took Sheri about a year to feel really at home in Seattle, it took me about twenty minutes. At Starbucks, I hit the ground running.

When I start something, I immerse myself totally in it. In those early months I spent all of my waking hours in the stores, working behind the counter, meeting the Starbucks people, tasting different kinds of coffee, and talking with customers. Jerry was committed to providing me with very strong training on the coffee side.

The last piece of my education—and definitely the highlight—was learning how to roast coffee. They didn’t let me do that until December. I spent a week at the roaster, listening for the second pop, examining the color of the beans, learning to taste the subtle differences among various roasts. It was the fitting end of an intensive training. I felt as if I had been knighted.

I probably surprised the people at Starbucks with how impassioned I was about coffee. When I worked in the store behind the counter, they were constantly testing my knowledge and how much I believed. I always had a good palate at blind tastings. Word got out.

Not surprisingly, there was resentment from some members of the company that Jerry Baldwin had hired an outsider. I could sense that I had to prove myself—prove that I was worthy of the gestalt of Starbucks. I tried hard to blend in. For a tall, high-energy New Yorker in a quiet, understated city, that wasn’t easy. I was used to dressing in expensive suits, and at Starbucks the informal dress code tended toward turtlenecks and Birkenstocks. It took a while to build trust. Still, I was hired to do a job, and I was overflowing with ideas for the company. I wanted to make a positive impact.

The atmosphere of Starbucks in those days was friendly and low-key, but we worked very hard. Christmas was our busiest season, and everybody in the office went to the stores to pitch in and help. One day I was working in the Pike Place store during the busy season. The store was packed, and I was in place behind the counter, ringing up sales, filling bags with coffee beans.

Suddenly, someone shouted, “Hey! That guy just headed out with some stuff!” Apparently, a customer had grabbed two expensive coffeemakers, one in each hand, and headed out the door.

I jumped over the counter and started running. Without stopping to wonder whether the guy had a gun, I chased him up a steep, cobblestone street, yelling “Drop that stuff! Drop it!”

The thief was so startled that he dropped both the pieces he had stolen and ran away. I picked them up and walked back into the store holding the coffeemakers up like trophies. Everybody applauded. That afternoon, I went back to the roasting plant, where my office was, and discovered that the staff had strung up a huge banner for me, which read: “Make my day.”

The more I got to know the company, the more I appreciated the passion behind it. But I gradually noticed one weakness. While the coffee was unquestionably the best it could be, the service sometimes came across as a little arrogant. That attitude grew out of the high degree of pride Starbucks had in the superiority of our coffee. Customers who relished in discovering new tastes and blends enjoyed discussing their newfound knowledge with our people, but I noticed that first-time customers occasionally felt ignorant or slighted.

I wanted to bridge that gap. I identified so closely with Starbucks that any flaw in Starbucks felt like my own personal weakness. So I worked with employees on customer-friendly sales skills and developed materials that would make it easy for customers to learn about coffee. Still, I figured there must be a better way to make great coffee accessible to more than a small elite of gourmet coffee drinkers.

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There’s no better place to truly savor the romance of life than Italy. That’s where I found the inspiration and vision that have driven my own life, and the course of Starbucks, from quiet Seattle to national prominence.

I discovered that inspiration in the spring of 1983, a time when I wasn’t even particularly looking for it. I had been at Starbucks for a year, and the company had sent me to Milan to attend an international housewares show. I traveled alone and stayed at a low-budget hotel near the convention center.

The minute I stepped out the door and into the sunshine of a warm autumn day, the spirit of Italy washed over me. I didn’t speak a word of Italian, but I felt I belonged.

Italians have an unparalleled appreciation for the fine pleasures of daily life. They have figured out how to live in perfect balance. They understand what it means to work, and equally what it means to relax and enjoy life. They embrace everything with passion. Nothing is mediocre. The infrastructure in Italy is appalling. Nothing works. But the food of Italy is absolutely incredible. The architecture is breathtaking. The fashion still defines elegance all over the world.

I especially love the light of Italy. It has a heady effect on me. It just brings me alive.

And what the light shines on is equally amazing. You can be walking down a drab street in an unremarkable residential neighborhood when suddenly, through a half-open door, you catch an unbelievably bright image of a woman hanging colorful clothing in a courtyard ringed with flowering plants. Or out of nowhere a merchant will roll up a metal door and reveal a gorgeous display of produce: freshly picked fruits and vegetables, arrayed in perfect gleaming rows.

Italians treat every detail of retail and food preparation with reverence and an insistence that nothing less than the best will do. In late summer and fall, for example, fresh figs are available at any ordinary produce stall. The merchant will ask: “White or black?” If the order is for half and half, the merchant will take a simple cardboard tray and cover it with three or four fig leaves, then pick each fig individually, squeezing it to ensure the perfect level of ripeness. He will arrange the fruit in four rows—three white, three black, three white, three black—and he will slide the tray carefully into a bag and hand it to you with the pride of an artisan.

The morning after I arrived, I decided to walk to the trade show, which was only fifteen minutes from my hotel. I love to walk, and Milan is a perfect place for walking.

Just as I started off, I noticed a little espresso bar. I ducked inside to look around. A cashier by the door smiled and nodded. Behind the counter, a tall, thin man greeted me cheerfully, “
Buon giorno
!” as he pressed down on a metal bar and a huge hiss of steam escaped. He handed a tiny porcelain demitasse of espresso to one of the three people who were standing elbow-to-elbow at the counter. Next came a handcrafted cappuccino, topped with a head of perfect white foam. The barista moved so gracefully that it looked as though he were grinding coffee beans, pulling shots of espresso, and steaming milk at the same time, all the while conversing merrily with his customers. It was great theater.

“Espresso?” he asked me, his dark eyes flashing as he held out a cup he had just made.

I couldn’t resist. I reached for the espresso and took a sip. A strong, sensual flavor crossed my tongue. After three sips it was gone, but I could still feel its warmth and energy.

Half a block later, across a side street, I saw another espresso bar. This one was even more crowded. I noticed that the gray-haired man behind the counter greeted each customer by name. He appeared to be both owner and operator. He and his customers were laughing and talking and enjoying the moment. I could tell that the customers were regulars and the routines comfortable and familiar.

In the next few blocks, I saw two more espresso bars. I was fascinated.

It was on that day that I discovered the ritual and the romance of coffee bars in Italy. I saw how popular they were, and how vibrant. Each one had its own unique character, but there was one common thread: the camaraderie between the customers, who knew each other well, and the barista, who was performing with flair. At that time, there were 200,000 coffee bars in Italy, and 1,500 alone in the city of Milan, a city the size of Philadelphia. It seemed they were on every street corner, and all were packed.

My mind started churning.

That afternoon, after I finished my meetings at the trade show, I set off again, walking the streets of Milan to observe more espresso bars. I soon found myself at the center of the city, where the Piazza del Duomo is almost literally lined with them. As you walk through the piazza, you’re surrounded by the smells of coffee and roasting chestnuts and the light banter of political debate and the chatter of kids in school uniforms. Some of the area’s coffee bars are elegant and stylish, while others are bigger, workaday places.

In the morning, all are crowded, and all serve espresso, the pure essence of coffee in a cup. There are very few chairs, if any. All the customers stand up, as they do in a western bar. All the men, it seemed, smoke.

The energy pulses all around you. Italian opera is playing. You can hear the interplay of people meeting for the first time, as well as people greeting friends they see every day at the bar. These places, I saw, offered comfort, community, and a sense of extended family. Yet the customers probably don’t know one another very well, except in the context of that coffee bar.