Starbucks launches new cafe rollout

● The new owners of Starbucks SA, Rand Capital Coffee, have begun their aggressive roll-out of new stores, starting with one in Cape Town’s mega-mall, Canal Walk, as they give the global coffee brand a second chance in the country.

The store, which was announced this week, will become the first to open in the Western Cape in November this year.

Rand Capital Coffee, which is a consortium of businessmen, bought Starbucks from listed group Taste Holdings in November last year after the cost of setting up the brand in SA was one of the reasons for Taste finding itself in financial distress. In 2015, when Taste signed a master franchise deal with Starbucks, it was conditional on Taste spending R226m to build new stores.

Rand Capital CEO Adrian Maizey, a South African resident in California, said the new Canal Walk store, located in the Century City node of Cape Town, was a vote of confidence by the iconic coffee group in SA.

Starbucks had affirmed its bullish view of the longer-term

South African coffee-drinking market, he said.

“Our strategy for 2020 and beyond is to invest and grow, and our new store in Canal

Walk symbolises our big plans for the future of

Starbucks in SA

— even in the light of the devastating Covid19 pandemic,” Maizey said.

Starbucks began in 1971 as a roaster and retailer of beans, ground coffee, tea and spices, with a single store in Seattle. It now serves millions of people in more than 30,000 retail stores in 80 markets.

Canal Walk is owned by JSE-listed Hyprop Investments, which also owns Rosebank Mall, the site of the first Starbucks to open in SA in 2016.

“The opening of the store is testimony of the trust brands have in Hyprop providing safe spaces where people can connect,” said Morné Wilken, CEO of Hyprop.

Maizey said he also wants to get Starbucks into neighbourhood shopping centres, petrol stations and possibly airports.

He said Starbucks could position itself as a neighbourhood brand even if there was a perception that it is a high-end indulgence.

“The perception is that this is an expensive brand given the depth of selection as well as the design of our stores. But our studies show that a cup of our coffee is about R1 less than Woolworths’ coffee,” he said.

Rand Capital Coffee bought all 13 Starbucks stores and the master franchise licence for SA from Taste Holdings for just R7m.

Our strategy for 2020 and beyond is to invest and grow