Reviews

Starbucks CEO Schultz has given millions of Americans a taste for dark-roasted coffee blends‘espresso, cappuccino, caffe latte‘as served in the congenial atmosphere of pseudo-Italian coffee bars. With Business Week writer Yang, he recalls here rounding up often reluctant investors, opening his first store in Seattle, fending off a takeover, providing stock options and health care coverage to employees while doggedly raising new capital despite early losses‘and eventually delivering a 100-to-1 return on investment. As the company grew, with a new store opening daily nationwide, Schultz hired away executives from 7-11 and Burger King, took on Wall Street with an initial public stock offering, all the while developing additional products (Frappucino) and customizing the music tapes played in the shops. As instruction in plain English on how to build a billion-dollar retail specialty chain, it is hard to imagine a more satisfying brew than this memoir. $300,000 ad/promo. (Sept.)

Schultz, chairman and CEO of Starbucks, and writer-researcher Yang trace the growth and development of Starbucks from a single store in Seattle, which in 1973 sold only dark-roasted coffee beans, to the international business it has become today. Schultz does not conceal his passion for good coffee or for his company. His initial goals were to introduce Americans to really fine coffee, provide people with a "third place" to gather, and treat his employees with dignity. The extent to which he succeeded and the obstacles encountered along the way are the subjects he tackles here. This is not, in the strictest sense, a how-to book despite its considerable detail but more a motivational title. Recommended for large public libraries.‘Joseph C. Toschik, Half Moon Bay P.L., Cal.