Starbucks CEO shares plan for a whole new menu

If stopping by Starbucks on your way to work is part of your routine, you’ve probably noticed some changes lately. 

First, you might be getting that hot or icy cup in your hands faster. One of new CEO Brian Niccol’s first promises was to shave minutes off the time from ordering to having that hot coffee in your hands. It seems to be working, in part due to a new mobile ordering system.

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You might also have noticed the menu in your local store is a little bit smaller. 

Getting rid of less-popular items was also on Niccol’s to-do-ASAP list. These days, you’ll find about 30% fewer items on the board. The company said goodbye to some items, partly because they were complex to make, which ultimately slowed down the ordering process across the board. 

So it’s kind of curious that at this week’s earnings call, Niccol’s trumpeted one of his latest plans: to add a whole new menu, but only during certain parts of the day. 

His plan is a nod to a beloved Italian practice, the aperitivo.

Starbucks is taking a page from Italian culture

If you’ve ever been lucky enough to visit Italy, you probably noticed that Italians are in a serious relationship with their coffee. 

There are coffee “bars” everywhere, including lots and lots of rules about what to drink and when. For example, cappuccinos and lattes are for the morning. And many Italians will walk into a bar, order coffee and drink it quickly while standing at the bar, and never take a seat. It’s an efficient way to get your morning cup of Joe, and in Italy it’s cheaper to order coffee this way, rather than with table service. 

Drive-thru coffee bars are not really a thing, and it’s rare to see an Italian walking down a a street with a paper cup. 

While Starbucks isn’t going so far as to discourage sitting and lingering in its stores, it is going to experiment with the Italian tradition where people gather after work and before dinner to enjoy a drink and light snacks. 

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The word aperitivo translates to “open,” and the idea is to awaken the appetite before dinner. 

At his first earnings call in January, Niccols made it clear it was his priority to return the company to its roots: owning people’s morning coffee habit.

Now, at his second earnings call, he suggested the company wants to own people’s afternoons as well. 

Starbucks CEO is making bold move

Many initiatives Niccol implemented over the last couple of months have been popular with customers, especially doing away with the extra charge for nondairy milk customizations, reducing wait times, and bringing back the self-serve condiments bar. 

Little customer-service touches like handwritten notes on to-go cups and free refills on drip coffee consumed on-site have also been praised.  

Now Niccols has shared that the company intends to introduce a slate of new menu items based on successes the company has seen in the UK and other international markets.

Niccol didn’t share details about the aperitivo menu, other than to say it would include “sparkling beverages, sippable coffee drinks, and snackable bites,” perhaps from around 2 to 5 p.m.

“We definitely want to reinforce the artisanal, the craft aspect that we provide for when people want to have that little snack or that little pick-me-up drink in the afternoon,” Niccol said during the earnings call. “And it gives us some flexibility to do some different things in the afternoon that maybe we wouldn’t be able to do in the morning.”

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