Perche

Italy has lots of tax avoidance, but I don't think it's too big of a thing anymore in bars. In Venice you go to the bar and order a coffee (not espresso) from the bartender. They bring it to you and before you leave you ask the bartender for the check, and you pay the bartender. In Rome if you go to the bar, no one will serve you. You'll just be standing there. You have to go to the cashier first and pay. To get served you have to show the receipt to the bartender. The general theme is that the bartender should not be handling money because it passes through too many hands and is considered too dirty for someone in the position of handling food.

I would say it's not, "where I took coffee in Italy." Italy remains a country mainly in concept. It was only founded in 1851. Venice wasn't conceded to Italy by Austria until 5 years later. Rome and its surrounding region wasn't made a part of Italy until it was successfully invaded by Italian troops in 1870. Most Italian-Americans' in the USA moved here not too long after Italy became a country because most immigration stopped when World War I started.

Each region that was conquered and tied together to form the country of Italy maintains its distinctiveness. In Venice if you want coffee you go straight to the bar. In Rome if you want coffee you first go to the cashier. It cannot be said, "when I took coffee in Italy," because it depends on where. Torino, Roman, Venetian, Napolitano coffee culture is different.

When the movie Gomorrah came out in 2008, a film about the Camorra (Napolitano Mafia) that received many awards, including nomination as one of the best foreign language film at the Oscars, I tried to watch it. It is in Napolitano language, which is not Italian. I could hardly understand a word, and couldn't finish watching it.

Two months ago I was in Naples with some native Napolitano friends who like most nowadays, speak Italian, all of whom are highly educated. Somehow that film came up, and the Napolitani were talking about what a masterpiece it was. I made a promise to myself to try to watch it again when I got back to the USA. I tried about three days ago. I couldn't understand anything they were saying. I know a native Roman Italian language professor who told me that she had to watch this movie with Italian sub-titles on because she couldn't understand Napolitano either. And she grew up a one hour train ride away.

Realistically, Italy as a single country is only an idea. There are a lot of differences from place to place, way different from going north, south, east or west in the USA. Curated experiences by travel agencies and cruises can make you feel as if you never left home, but actual Italy on the ground is quite different.

I agree with rickg523, coffee in the USA is pretty bad. When Starbucks came out I was living in Seattle and drank coffee at the original store, and it definitely took coffee up a notch. In that way it became deservedly popular. But it can't compete with great coffee (not that every bar in Italy makes great coffee).

I've been working the night shift in Pennsylvania for the last week. Today I went for coffee at the only place open at 5:30 AM, the local Subway. I needed two shots because I was very tired, so I asked for two large coffees. They gave me two 16 ounce cups, amounting to about a liter of coffee just to get two shots. It's basically water. In Italy, a cafe' doppio (double) would fit into a standard shot glass, without having to drink it diluted in a quart of water. The coffee in the USA is water. It is also so bad that it needs a lot of sugar. I had to put six teaspoons of sugar and six of those mini-cream things into the liter of coffee to make that Subway coffee drinkable. That's what passes for coffee in the USA. Starbucks is better.

Coffee in Italy is different. If you don't want italian coffee and ask for an Americano, the recipe is to take one shot of coffee and add 12 ounces of water to alter it to American tastes. Sort of like that watery stuff I drank at the Subway sandwich shop this morning.

Perche

So this is how Starbucks feels it can make it in Italy. Just like Rome has Gabriele Bonci the, "Michaelangelo of pizza." Milan, where Howard Schulz got the idea for Starbucks, has Rocco Princi, "Re del pane di Milano."

For his opening in Milan, Starbucks has partnered with Princi, and they are in this together. These will not be Starbucks as we know it. They will be Starbuck Roastery. They just tested the new concept by opening a Starbuck Roastery in Seattle, home of Starbucks.

In addition to the coffee provided by Starbucks at Starbucks Roasterys, Princi will provide bread, pizza, cake made on premises, panini di bresaola and mortadella. The offerings change throughout the day. There are no menus because they want you to interact with the server to find out what they are making. In the morning they might be serving croissant with eggs, ham, fontina, and porcini sauce. For lunch there might be pizza, focaccia, soups, and salads. There will be Italian sweets and pastries that have not yet been seen in the USA.

Now that they have one in Seattle they are going to open a Roastery in Chicago, New York, and Shanghai, as well as Italy starting in Milan. In addition to opening Starbucks Roasterys in Italy, Princi has many bakeries around Milan. As part of the contract, Starbucks is going to invest in him and help him turn his bakeries into an Italian nationwide chain in return for serving Starbucks at his stores.

So, it's a Princi and Starbucks partnership to develop Starbucks Roastery, and for Princi to develop his bakery into a chain. It's not going to be the usual boring Starbucks at the mall, although there will be some of that because they will also be opening a few regular Starbucks stores.

ckendall

I have been to Princi on Corso Como (once for lunch and once for an aperitivo) and it is pretty good. My Italian friends seem to think it's not a bad place to grab a pasty or a snack and a great place to have an aperitivo. I'm not sure how it will translate in the Starbucks world (almost everything I tried to eat from Starbucks seems pretty bad), but the source material is good.

KLouis

In the late 70s, while living in Rome, I had a two-day business in Pavia and I took along my 16 years old son to show him both that town and Milano. We had an evening flight back to Rome, where I had already cooked dinner (trippa) and only needed to warm it up and see that I had some fresh bread. We spent hours walking around in Milano (the centre of the city) and we could find not one bakery to buy bread, but lots of places to buy fancy clothes. We arrived in Rome after dark, took the train from FCO and walking the 500 metres from the station to home (quartiere africano) we found three bakeries where you could buy fresh (still!) bread. I love Rome!!!

stut

I've seen different models of Starbucks going into countries with coffee cultures.

In France, they barely sell any coffee. But they do push the soya and coconut milk, something the traditional cafés have been slow to adopt. What they're really good at is the Frappucinos, though, which fly out the door at €5 a pop.

Down in Portugal, however, they seem to have opted for the coffee angle. It's equally set up for the stood-up espresso and pastel de nata (the latter aren't bad) and they've put effort into getting the coffee right for the region. They advertise tasting sessions, so people in the area can come and see that actually, it's not that horrible american coffee they've heard about.

Be interesting to see the approach they take in Italy.