After months of renovations and staff training, the first Princi bakery opened in Seattle today at the back of the original Starbucks Roastery on Capitol Hill, a mile from the Pike Place Market where Starbucks got its start. It's the initial venture into North America for Italian superstar baker Rocco Princi, who has six stores in Milan and one in London.
Starbucks, for its part, has more than 26,000 stores in 74 countries.
The partnership with Princi, announced last year, will lead to Princi bakeries in all future top-of-the-line Roastery locations. Starbucks will also support the creation of additional freestanding Princi locations, beginning next year.
When the Seattle Roastery opened three years ago, the Princi space was devoted to an upscale pizza parlor operated by Seattle restaurateur Tom Douglas. In its place now, a display counter of mouthwatering pastries, fresh from the ovens at the back.
There's no "line" as such. Customers jostle, much as they would in Italy, while they inspect the goods. Cheerful commessas (sales girls) make suggestions and ring up purchases. That's Jocelyn Lemus in the photo.
Financing for the expansion came from an investment team that includes Milan-based Angel Capital Management and Pekepan Investments, No official word, but there are reports the venture raised in the tens of millions.
As I reported in March, Starbucks itself is opening its own store in Milan later this year, in the city's historic post office building around the corner from the Duomo.
The man whose passion underlies the partnership, Rocco Princi, was born in Calabria, in the south of Italy. He discovered his love of bread when he apprenticed with the village baker as a teenager. He opened his first shop in Villa San Giovanni, a coastal town known as the jumping off point for ferry rides to Sicily. By 1986 he was in Milan, Italy's second city and its fashion capital, launching a chain of artisan bakeries. He says he is inspired by the"Spirito di Milano," the energy and creative spirit of the city.
For the venture with Starbucks, Princi developed more than 100 menu items, many of them using imported ingredients. Although the baking itself is done inside the Roastery, much of the prep work is performed at what Starbucks calls its Corporate Support Center in the warehouse and industrial district south of downtown.
The cast iron ovens which bake the pastries and midday pizzas are stone-hearth electric "decks" from Michael Wenz in Arnstein, Germany. Their intricate control panels stand off to the side; the wooden logs in front are for show.
Still, freshly baked goods will flow all day from the ovens at the Roastery, beginning with breakfast pastries, moving to lunchtime sandwiches, late afternoon pizza by the slice (the bakery also houses a full bar for happy hour), and, of course, a selection of desserts.
Starbucks has never before done in-store baking. "Not in our 45-year history, but all of that will change with the creation of this unique partnership with Princi," said executive chairman Howard Schultz.
"Rocco and his team at Princi possess a passion for handcrafted food and artisanal baked goods that mirrors how I feel about our coffee." he continued.
Mr. Princi is known as something of a stickler. For example, the ham & cheese croissants aren't stuffed with random cuts of prosciutto cotto (ham) and Provolone cheese. First, the prosciutto was hand-selected by Rocco himself in Parma, the town 90 miles southeast of Milan where genuine Prosciutto di Parma originates. It is then sliced in-store on a OMAS machine whose oversize cutting wheel assures thinner and uniform slices. (And here you thought the fancy Berkel at your neighborhood salumeria was a big deal.) The result is remarkable: sliced even thinner than "deli-style," the ham gains a deeper flavor. The croissant, made without sugar, tastes sweet. "This is bakery magic," said Alan Booth, director of culinary programs for Princi.
Less than a decade ago, Schultz identified the potential of a San Francisco-based chain of neighborhood bakeries called La Boulange, operated by a Frenchman named Pascal Rigo. Starbucks paid $100 million or so to acquire the business, but decided after a time that it wasn't worth the trouble (special ovens, supply chain issues) to provide warm pastries in its busiest stores. Rigo eventually left the company and started a new business that supplies baked goods to Costco. He also founded a chain of mini-bakeries in France called La P'tite Boulangerie.
"La Boulange was never meant for the Roastery concept," Booth explained. "Princi is much higher-level."
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