Starbucks Coffee Company was founded in 1971 by three businessmen in Seattle, Washington who had a love for coffee and tea. It was important to them that the city of Seattle to have access their coffee.

The Starbucks Coffee Company grew slowly but by 1981 had 4 retail stores and a roasting plant that sold whole bean coffee in Seattle only.

By 1983 the marketing manager had a vision of re-creating the magic and romance behind the Italian coffee bar and wanted to test out the concept of selling espresso by the cup. When Starbucks Coffee opened its 6th store in downtown Seattle, the idea had become a hit. Within 2 months the new store was serving over 700 customers a day and it was selling 3 times more than the whole bean locations.

In 1987, the owners of Starbucks Coffee Company decided to sell their coffee business along with the name to a group of local investors for $3.7 million.

The new investors were told that they would open 125 Starbucks coffee stores in the next five years. Starting from a base of 17 stores in 1987, the company expanded rapidly to Vancouver, Portland and Chicago.

By 1991 Starbucks had expanded into the mail-order catalogue business, licensed airport stores and expanded further into the state of California.

In 1992 the company went public and after the initial public offering, Starbucks continued to grow at a phenomenal pace that no one had ever seen in the coffee world before. By 1997 the number of Starbucks Coffee stores grew tenfold, with locations in the US, Japan and Singapore.

Starbucks initiated several successful product and brand extensions including offering coffee on United Airlines flights. They also began selling premium teas through its Tazo Tea Company and offering people the option to purchase starbucks coffee online to enjoy at home.

They began distributing whole bean and ground coffee to supermarkets through an agreement with Kraft Foods. They also produced premium coffee ice cream with Dreyers. Starbucks even sold CDs in its retail stores.

Starbucks began turning its name into a household word not through advertising but through word of mouth. In fiscal 2010, Starbucks opened a record 1,344 stores worldwide. The once small regional roaster, Starbucks Coffee Company, now has more than 9,000 locations in 34 countries serving over 20 million customers a week.

A coffee shop business plan is what you need if you are thinking of starting your own coffee shop. Coffee is in big demand all over the world – in fact, it is the second greatest revenue generating product in international commerce, next only to petroleum. A coffee shop business can therefore be very lucrative – but only if you do it right. If you don’t, it’ll only be a waste of your time, resources and money, and a setback for your dreams. So a comprehensive coffee shop business plan would help you to do things right from the very beginning.

Or perhaps you already own a coffee shop, and are wondering what you can do to boost sales. Or maybe you want to buy an already existing coffee business, and want to make sure that you run it right. You might even want to add a coffee angle to your existing business. Whatever your purpose, however you may want to become involved with the coffee business, you’ll most likely want to have a coffee shop business plan in place before taking the first step. There are certain vital questions to be considered. Will it be really worth it? Will you have adequate resources to see it through till you succeed?

There are hundreds of varieties of coffee and coffee-based drinks; what drinks should you make? What equipment should you buy? What kind of location should you look for? Do you go it independent, or do you get a franchise from some big player? In short, you don’t know too many things about the coffee business; where do you start? All reasons to have a Coffee Shop Business Plan in place. First, you need to think about finance. Either you take a loan from the bank or you impress investors so they buy a stake in your business. In either case, you need to write an informed, coherent coffee shop business plan.

This should include what you intend to do, how you intend to implement it, what kind of startup finances you need, what level of sales you’re looking at, and how you plan to pay the (private or institutional) investors back. For a drive-thru, you should need something between $40,000 and $150,000. for a full-fledged coffee shop, however, it could be anything between $60,000 and $350,000, depending on your scale of operation.