Starbucks ready to roll out evening booze sales

Starbucks built an empire pepping us up. Now it will feather its nest chilling us out. While it is not the first coffee chain to jump into alcohol sales —  Xando did over a decade ago— Starbucks will certainly be the largest. And Starbucks is ready to turn on the taps. 

Starbucks, which has been testing evening alcohol at 40 locations in Chicago, Atlanta and Southern California, is ready to dramatically expand the program to thousands of stores nationwide,  Bloomberg reports. The experiment began with alcohol sales at one Seattle Starbucks in 2010. The results have been positive. “We’ve tested it long enough in enough markets — this is a program that works,” Chief Operating Officer Troy Alstead told Bloomberg. “As we bring the evening program to stores, there’s a meaningful increase in sales during that time of the day.” 

The rollout will take several years, according to Alstead, and will not fit at all locations. There are 11,500 Starbucks stores in the U.S.

Perhaps you’ll be able to order your nightcap before you get to your local Starbucks. Earlier this month, Starbucks said it would soon test a way for customers to  order items ahead of time with their smartphones

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