Watch: New Starbucks opens in Staffordshire town with customers forming long queues
The new Starbucks store in Burntwood has created 16 new jobs and offered free reusable cups to the first 100 customers
There was a long queue of customers as a new Starbucks opened in a Staffordshire town today.
The new coffee shop opened near to Morrisons, off Milestone Way in Burntwood at 9am, with Chase Terrace Councillor Susan Woodward cutting a ribbon to mark the store’s opening.
Councillor Woodward shared her delight, saying: “It’s been a long time coming.
“This area has been completely empty for a long number of years. At last we’ve got some development here so it’s great that Starbucks are welcoming in our community and I’m sure our community will very much welcome you.”
The drive-thru restaurant has created 16 new jobs and the first 100 customers to come through the door after the opening ceremony were greeted with a free reusable cup.
Azhar, front-of-house staff, said: “It’s really exciting for the community. Starbucks is all about giving back to communities.”
Store manger Charl added: “It’s important that we’ve opened this store in Burntwood as there’s no local Starbucks; although we’re a big brand we want to be really community focused.
“It’s driving a lot of new trade and we’ve created a lot of new jobs for local people.”
Starbucks is also starting a new initiative called ‘seed to bean to cup’, with five employees currently a part of the initiative.
James Townsend, assistant store manager and district coffee expert, from Leeds, shared his experience joining the initiative and passed on his knowledge at the opening.
“I recently was selected with four others in the UK to go to Rwanda with Starbucks,” he said.
“In the stores we have ‘bean to cup’ which is the bean from the machine into your cup of coffee and I was privileged enough to learn ‘seed to bean’.
“So I was planting trees in Africa working with collectives and women in Africa. Starbucks is huge for empowerment of women.
“Now I know ‘seed to bean to cup’, the whole story, and I can input all this knowledge into the teams.
“We need to get this information to more stores like Burntwood.
“Coffee needs to be an experience and to create that experience we need more customer connection.”
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