15th Ave Coffee & Tea

At 15th Ave Coffee & Tea in Seattle you can get something most coffee places don't offer.

All of their coffee is brewed the way you like it, either pour over, French Press, La Marzocco or Clover. They offer a variety of unique coffees some of which are grown locally and others are from around the world. Their specialty teas are just as unique and special.

15th Ave Coffee & Teas serves fresh pastries which are baked locally and delivered fresh to the coffee shop every day. During the evening you can get a cup of specialty coffee and enjoy live music from a local artist. An added bonus to this whole experience is the free Wi-Fi and the hip atmosphere.

This one of a kind coffee shop just a short time ago was a neighborhood Starbucks, one of many throughout the Seattle area. This particular location fell victim to Starbucks many closings throughout the country late last year.

Then just this past week the shopped reopened as 15th Ave Coffee & Tea. The ironic part? It's still owned by Starbucks.

That's right, Starbucks closed the store, completed rebranded it as a local coffee shop and then reopened it under a different name. Are they trying to trick us?

Starbucks isn't trying to fool anyone, they're conducting an experiment. When Starbucks became mainstream in the 1990s, their rapid expansion ran many local coffee shops out of business. With their corporate marketing budget and streamlined processes the local joints simply couldn't compete. Now, Starbucks is taking a step back to discover what it destroyed.

For the first time ever they are creating an authentic and local coffee shop that serves up more than just coffee...they're serving a piece of the local culture. By concentrating on everything local, even naming their store after the street their located on, their hoping that they will uncover a new secret about what consumers actually desire.

According to this recent article it seems like this new "local" approach is just the beginning. If the 15th Ave experiment goes like Starbucks has planned, we might all start seeing Starbucks close and reopen as a new creation.

The real question however is if this new local approach is enough to change consumer's opinions about Starbucks. If a local coffee shop owned by Starbucks opens in your neighborhood, would you go there?

More info about the 15th Ave Coffee & Tea shop is available on their website here.