It's a question that a lot of you keep asking, just what is going on with the Starbucks deal for Disney's resorts. Here's the latest, the official announcement shouldn't be too far off at this point:
When Pigs Fly
The long saga of TDA executives trying to get Starbucks into the Anaheim parks is now over three years old, but it’s the closest to being public now than it’s ever been. After an initial deal fell apart in ’09, TDA has been doing a slow-motion dance with the Starbucks corporate team up in Seattle since 2011. Just as we’d reported back in ’09, the major sticking points still revolve around the training of Disney Cast Members who would be operating Starbucks’ equipment and using their proprietary materials and processes to create your drink.
The problem isn’t helped by some rather big egos on Disney’s part, with Disney’s negotiating teams made up of people who have very little or absolutely no experience with the front-line Cast Members working in the parks. Starbucks didn’t become one of the biggest business success stories of the last 25 years for nothing, and after sensing that the Disney team assigned to the deal didn’t really know what the in-park customer experience was like, Starbucks sent reconnaissance spies into Disneyland to observe how the Cast Members operate and behave when they are working the espresso machines at Disney’s existing park coffee shops.
The observations the Starbucks folks made and reported back to headquarters in Seattle were pretty discouraging, and it was clear to the Starbucks team that the Anaheim Cast Members had received very poor training, or no apparent training at all, on how to create a quality espresso drink. Disney had been approaching the training and operating of the espresso machines no differently than it approaches the operation of a deep fryer or a soft serve machine. And as the coffee culture grew over the last 20 years more and more Disneyland visitors can no longer stomach the coffee flavored swill served to them, especially the more demanding tourists from the Pacific Northwest where coffee is king and a badly made Latte can be spotted from 10 feet.
It doesn’t help that the Foods division at Disneyland suffers from one of the highest turnover rates of all theme park departments with the very youngest CM’s hired in at 17. The front-line leadership at the smaller locations with an espresso machine is often just 6 to 8 months out of their orientation day by the time they are supervising these Disneyland locations (often before they’ve graduated from high school). Disney’s restaurant leadership is so green that it’s not unusual for the HR team to scramble with newly minted salaried restaurant managers at the Disneyland Resort because they aren’t yet 21 and legally can’t manage the DCA restaurants that serve alcohol.
Compared to the dramatically lower turnover rate at the average Starbucks (how long has your favorite barista worked at your local store?), and Starbucks’ near-religious approach to their expert training and sharp corporate culture, the poorly trained front-line Disneyland Cast Members and the weak supervision that TDA provides for them were a constant stumbling block to getting a deal done between Starbucks and Disneyland.
But with Starbucks willing to jump through hoops to provide the right training to the bumbling yet pompous Disneyland team, the deal has been falling in to place over this past winter. With an unusually dramatic flair, the plan to bring Starbucks to Disney property in Anaheim was given a top-secret code name back in 2011, dubbed “Project Orange”. Although the word on just exactly what Project Orange is up to has been spreading quickly through Anaheim’s Food & Beverage team in recent weeks.
The first in-park Starbucks is now slated to open this June on Buena Vista Street with the re-launched Disney California Adventure. Starbucks will take up residence in the Fiddler, Fifer and Practical Café, as an odd hybrid of a regular Starbucks and a Disney-run operation. While the Fiddler, Fifer and Practical Café (dubbed the Pig Café by Anaheim’s Foods group) will maintain all the great 1920’s theming and architecture already shown to the public, subtle Starbucks logos in rubbed brass and period-appropriate signage will be added near the entrance doors. It won’t scream Starbucks with green awnings and bright logos like your neighborhood location, but once anyone gets within sight of the front door they’ll be able to spot the logo and tell that it’s a Starbucks. (Now you know why Bob Iger decreed that the huge tree already planted in front of the Pig Café be moved over a few feet at big expense, as he knows this new corporate alliance needs to go well and the subtle Starbucks logos can’t be too hidden.)
Once inside the Pig Café, the restaurant will operate like a traditional Starbucks during the morning hours just after the park opens. It’s at that time of day that the four separate espresso machines each staffed by a Starbucks-trained barista will be going full blast (where most of Starbucks’ “big” stores only have two machines), and the refrigerated cases near the front will offer a selection of Starbucks own grab-n-go breakfast and pastry items. Later in the day the location will switch over solely to a Disney created menu for lunch and dinner options, while Starbucks espresso drinks will still be offered through park closing. Over a hundred seats at a few dozen tables inside and out at the Pig Café should soak up most of the lunch and dinner crowd, although it’s expected that the morning business will be mostly to-go orders as people stream into the park and head to Cars Land with their Venti Latte and Danish.
While DCA jumps head first into the theme park Starbucks business, neither TDA nor Burbank thinks it should end there. The refurbished food locations on Main Street USA at Disneyland are also in the sights of TDA’s Project Orange team for the future, but the Pig Café location will be the first to open this June. Starbucks, for their part, is more hesitant and will be keeping a close eye on the Pig Café this June to make sure their product is being served correctly before they agree to more theme park locations. - Al