![]() ![]() Seven years later, it started expanding through the sale of franchises and now has 110 stores - all with a hardwood and forest-green decor - in 26 states. The Gloria Jean's Coffee Bean Corporation, based in Buffalo Grove, Ill., opened for business in 1979 as a single shop. Also surprising has been the success of a small company called Gloria Jean's, a chain of shops that sell exotic coffees, coffee-making equipment and, in some stores, cups of hot and cold brew. If only they knew what the next 5 years had in store for them.Īmericans have been sipping fewer cups of coffee over all in the last few years, yet sales of specialty coffees like Hawaiian Kona and Jamaican Blue Mountain are surprisingly strong. Oh yeah, here's an article on Gloria Jeans in 1991 - "Gloria Jean's Leads the Specialty Coffee Stampede". I think people had become so used to "gourmet coffee" being coffee with added flavors, that I remember when Starbucks first started popping up in the Houston area, they had to have signs explaining why they did not offer flavored coffee beans, that the flavorings can migrate over to unflavored beans nearby, and are often used to cover up inferior bean flavors, but assured customers they could have a shot of flavored syrup in their coffee if they wanted. I remember before Starbucks made it to Houston, a few of the malls had locations of a chain "gourmet" coffee store going back to at least the mid 80s, was it Gloria Jeans? I just remembered how good they smelled when you walked by them, and unlike Starbucks, their stock in trade was not selling beans from Sumatra or Tanzania, but coffee beans flavored with various flavorings, chocolate, hazelnut, "irish coffee" with artificial whiskey flavoring, etc. There was the big one at the corner, one in the Barnes and Noble that used to be across Post Oak from it, and two in the Galleria across the street. But he missed the real Starbucks feat, at the corner of Post Oak and Westheimer there were technically four Starbucks at one point, though they weren't visible from one another. The third is in the Barnes and Noble (and is visible from the one across the street through the windows). Lewis missed the fact that there are actually three Starbucks on that corner. That there was a Starbucks across from a Starbucks - and that, my friends, is the end of the universe." I looked back and forth, thinking the sun was playing tricks with my eyes. Imagine my surprise when I left a comedy club one day and walked to the end of the block, and there on one corner was a Starbucks, and across the street from that Starbucks, in the exact same building as that Starbucks, there was - a Starbucks. " I've seen the end of the universe, and it happens to be in the United States and, oddly enough, it's in Houston, Texas. The following was written after Lewis Black played the Laff Stop in River Oaks Plaza, so both W Gray Starbucks were open sometime before that performance. Perhaps though that intersection wasn't considered to be in the Houston city limits at that time, so the Chronicle doesn't count it. I'm not sure if that is quite true, I distinctly remember going with my family to Starbucks after dinner up at the 1960/Champion Forest Drive store, my senior year of high school when it was a novelty for us (I was class of 1994). Houston Chronicle says the first Starbucks was the Highland Village location, then the Galleria, then Westheimer and Fountainview, and then a fourth location opened in February 1995, but it doesn't say where. Where and when does everyone remember going to their first Starbucks in Houston in the 90s?ĥ508 FM 1960 W (NE corner of FM 1960 and Champion Forest Drive - since moved to the NW corner) ![]() I'm trying to get an idea of where and when Starbucks really exploded on the scene here in Houston. Starbucks is so ubiquitous now, and has been for so long, with a location every few hundred yards (it sometimes seems), but I do remember a time when Starbucks was a novelty in Houston. Driving past another new Starbucks location in my neighborhood this morning, got to thinking.
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