Seattle’s Best Coffee Follows Starbucks’ Lead Company Plans To Expand Nationwide And Open 500 Stores By 1999

Seattle’s Best Coffee has signed a major franchising agreement for 15 stores in the Los Angeles area and plans to build corporate stores in Portland, Boston and Chicago.

The company’s announcement is part of a plan to open 500 stores by 1999 through franchising and corporate stores.

In Boston and Chicago, the corporate stores will be SBC’s first outlets.

“Our first corporate store will serve as a beach-head that will allow us to showcase our products, services and experience in the coffee industry,” said John Thiesen, SBC’s chief operating officer and general manager.

SBC’s inaugural store in Chicago will have 1,700 square feet of space and 12 employees. During the next two years, SBC hopes to open 15 to 20 additional stores in the Chicago area through franchising, Thiesen said.

Plans for the Boston market are similar, company officials said.

In Southern California, where Seattle-based rival, Starbucks, already has a big presence, SBC has signed a franchising agreement with Tuscany Holdings of Santa Monica, which will make an investment of $3.3 million.

The stores Tuscany Holdings wants to open are 1,000 to 1,800 square feet and employ 10 to 14 employees each.

Starbucks has 40 stores in the Los Angeles area and another 14 in Orange County, Starbucks spokeswoman Cherri Libby said.

SBC, which has 14 cafes in Washington state, is building corporate stores in Beverly Hills and Santa Monica.

Tuscany Holdings’ first store will open in Irvine, while it also is scouting for locations in West Hollywood, Beverly Hills, Manhattan Beach, Santa Monica and other west Los Angeles communities. “We’re excited to get into the specialty coffee industry,” said Arthur Kleinman, president of Tuscany Holdings.

“With Seattle’s Best Coffee, we are buying into a very successful enterprise that has a fantastic reputation around the country.”

Even with its new locations, SBC will still operate in the shadow of Starbucks, which has 560 stores nationwide and has expansion plans that call for a total of 1,500 stores by the year 2000.