Starbucks Expands Booze and After-Hours Menu to Thousands of Stores
Sightings of Starbucks booze were first seen back in October 2010, the trend slowly making its way to select test stores in Chicago, Southern California and Atlanta. Now, following today’s announcement of Starbucks’ new Oprah-branded tea, the coffee giant confirmed that it will expand its “Starbucks Evenings” to thousands of stores across the country.
“We’ve tested it long enough in enough markets — this is a program that works,” Chief Operating Officer Troy Alstead told Bloomberg. “As we bring the evening program to stores, there’s a meaningful increase in sales during that time of the day.”
The rollout, however, won’t happen overnight and will take several years to fully implement. The after-hours menu includes wine and small plates like bacon-wrapped dates and truffle mac and cheese. At the moment, only 40 out of the 11,000 Starbucks locations offer the evening selections, with more set to to drop in high-traffic urban areas first.
To the die-hard fans of the green giant, don’t worry — you’ll be double fisting peppermint mochas and chardonnay soon enough.