I wouldn't worry about it that much. They've been saying this for years. Last year they said they would do this by 2017. The article in the Italian paper says they are going to do this by the Fall of 2018, but I wouldn't hold my breath. They did open one in a former post office building in Milan last October. In the article, the founder of Starbucks indicated that he got his inspiration for Starbucks from a coffee bar in Milan, but he knows he could never compete with a typical Italian coffee bar. What the plan is, to be rolled out also in select cities in the USA such as LA and NYC, is to open really super high-end coffee places, with special decor, high-priced blends, etc.
He said he knows he could never compete with a regular coffee bar in Italy So he is going for a small niche of super-high end coffee. The plan of opening 200-300 is just pie-in-the-sky from the Italian publicist. All he really said was, "Hopefully the demand will be so great that we can open hundreds of Starbucks all over Italy." Going from a single store in Milan to opening hundreds of franchises across Italy is a long way off. It's not as if they've signed leases to open 300 stores. It was almost one year ago to the day, on February 28, 2016 that Starbucks announced, "With Humility and Respect, Starbucks Turns its Eyes to Italy."
In its new press release this year, it indicates that what will set them apart from the corner bar, in addition to super-premium coffee, is that they will have Wi-Fi. Good luck with that. When I first moved to Italy in 2010 I still had to go downstairs to pay telephone booths to make a phone call, and there was little WiFi anywhere. You had to go to an "internet point" and pay by the meter. Now, many of the corner bars have WiFi.
A Starbuck representative thinks it will work for Italians, "especially those who have travelled. It's a way to remember 'I was in New York. In Bologna, the most recent coffee bar to open at the central station has a counter filled with brownies and a variety of muffins. In most large cities you can now find a few American-style coffee bars, offering novelty coffees with flavoured mixing syrups and topping sauces, whipped cream or fat-free whipped milk, all adorned with chocolate or nut sprinkles, tiny meringues and even marshmallows. While some Italians turn their noses up at American culture, others are attracted to it, whether it's popcorn at the movies, Halloween, or cheesecake."
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-35728428
I did notice something interesting yesterday. I was standing at a bar in Venice and a couple walked in. The man ordered a beer, the woman ordered a latte. I thought, "This will be interesting, she just ordered a glass of milk. This is not Starbucks." I tried to watch the barista to see what she was going to do, but I lost my attention. When I remembered, I turned around and looked at the couple who already had their drinks on their table behind me. The woman had a drink in a soda glass, not in a coffee cup, and it looked grey, and sort of like it needed to be stirred to mix it up. I asked the barista how she made that, since the lady had just asked for milk. She shrugged and said, "it's an American thing," and said she does mezzo mezzo, making it half milk, half coffee, and smiled.