How long before you're baking cookies and muffins in your Starbucks store?

A press release about a new drive-thru concept at a suburban Chicago Seattle's Best store mentions that the Starbucks-owned outlet will be serving freshly baked muffins and coffees. My guess is that if they're a hit in this tests story that you'll eventually see fresh-baked goods in all Starbucks-owned stores. Your thoughts on in store baking?

Discuss this or anything else in the open thread.

Seattle's Best picks Chicago for new drive-thru concept with fresh-baked cookies and muffins

Comments

[Paul]

Great. More to clean...

[whatevz]

Freshly baked just means from a local vendor, not actually baked in-store.

[MS]

I personally don't believe that baking fresh in-store would ever become reality into the majority of stores.

Clover/Wine+Beer stores I could see more small breakfast/lunch/apps but baking core pastries isn't a possibility to most stores.

1. Space in existing Starbucks is inconsistent and mostly very limited store to store.

2. Fresh to Frozen stores - a good amount of money has been spent on this program that is intended to save money (freezers, pastry racks, BOH optimization, etc.

3. inconsistent product quality - I've been into larger coffee shops that have baked in-store and pastries are never consistent (doughy, over baked, no/crazy amount frosting, etc) plus they usually don't have anything to sell for the first 1-2 hours of open.

[Nandypants]

This kind of sounds like when hotels pop pre-made cookies into a toaster oven for "hospitality"...no thanks because I highly doubt this would be quality bakery being made at the local Starbucks.

[MS]

@Nandypants - I couldn't agree more. Yes I would rather go to a place that specializes in pastries and bread.

Stick to our core of coffee. I just can't take Starbucks serious with "freshly baked frozen dough in-store "

I had seen info about this last week on Melody's.
http://www.starbucksmelody.com/2012/03/24/starbucks-experiments-with-freshly-baked-in-store-cookies-and-pastries/

[R1]

I wish the pastries could be locally sourced. This would be costly and very likely unrealistic but we talk about being part of a community. If it could be done it would be a win-win. Starbucks could serve fresh baked goods and give back to the community by supporting local businesses.

Right now our pastries are delivered frozen after close. They sit out all night and thaw, then they are put into the freezer and frozen again. Then we take them out in the evening to thaw and fill the case with them in the am. Yumm!

[Martha]

We "freshly bake frozen dough in-store" and nobody complains. :)

(Of course, this is at a B&N cafe, not an "official" Starbucks.)

[VCQ]

Agree with Martha. I used to work at a B&N (music, not cafe), and I remember how good the store smelled when a batch of cookies came out of the "oven." It certainly got the customers' attention! Tastewise, I'd rank them below homemade, but above your average box mix or supermarket bakery cookies.

The most unique Starbucks baked goods I've seen were in Japan. I spent the first half of last year working in Central Japan, and Starbucks Japan came up with unique baked goods that appealed to Japanese tastes (matcha, azuki, sakura) using familiar baked goods (chiffon cake was particularly popular, as were cake pops and pastries). There's a particularly good photo blog of Starbucks Japan bakery offerings at Bucked By The Star.

[meowgan]

R1 - Pretty when I was a barista a few years ago that pastries were local...but then it was changed as a cost savings measure :(

[Siberiabux]

@meowgan- you are correct, pastries were local (where available) and stores had regional food items that weren't available outside of a specific area. In attempts at consistency, we launched one national food program in 2009, ensuring that the blueberry muffin you buy in Kalamazoo tastes the same as in NY. Unfortunately, that meant applying a standard of mediocrity to all of our food. For instance in NYC, our bagels use to be provided by Tom Cat, a very reputable bakery that caters to resteraunts throughout the city. Now, "new York style" bagels are served at every Starbucks but pale greatly in comparison to the real new York bagels we use to sell

[javagirl666]

We had a local program years ago..quality and consistency were terrible.

[I <3 music]

Improving our pastries is an opportunity.

[wasatec]

I remember local pastries, they were all based on Schwartz Bros recipes. Schwartz Bros was what was served in the Seattle stores, back in the day. If you go to their website and look at the pastries page, they still look just like what used to be served at Sbux back in the early nineties. The local versions varied and Sbux was either picky or locked into using really small bakeries by contract with Schwartz (probably so they wouldn't be supplying competitors with recipes). The local stuff could be real inconsistent. Most of the time is was pretty good. Certainly better then the frozen stuff they serve now.

[Rajeesh]

I heard their lease at Galveston was up this fall and since they had moved their bread and pastry binkag to 1st Street that they weren't using most of the space at Galveston and didn't want to expand into a restaurant. Not sure why they closed before their lease was done. Be interesting to see what opens there ..great location.

[Jhonatan]

Kim Russell - Wow .. You take amazing preiutcs! Absolutely gorgeous, unique, fun, & most of all they show how seriously talented & gifted you are!!!! I would love to have you take preiutcs of my children & also preiutcs of our animals. I will inbox you on fb & let you know what type of preiutcs I am interested in getting done. Take care & keep up the great work ur very good at what you do (as it shows in your photo's)

[Doesmatter]

There's a letter saniyg due to unforeseen circumstances, they closed the Galveston store on May 8th, but the downtown & Redmond airport are still open. Sad.

[Runceanu]

RAD!!!! Cheers for sharing. The ltetar actually sounds better because it doesn't use Splenda AND it has prunes!!! Wheee!!!! I'm an old lady and actually love prunes. : ) I shall be making those muffins soon for sure!