If Starbucks is basically your second home, you probably feel like you know the beloved coffee chain like the back of your hand. But we bet there are a few things that will surprise you — plus a few little-known hacks. Test your knowledge with these 17 facts!
- Starbucks opened its first store in 1971 in Seattle's Pike Place Market (hence the coffee name).
- As of 2012, Starbucks has sold $1.5 billion worth of food [1] in the US every year.
- The food with the most calories (540) is the double-smoked bacon, cheddar, and egg sandwich [2].
- And the food with the least calories (120) is the petite vanilla bean scone [3].
- Starbucks acquired San Francisco-based bakery La Boulange in 2012 [4] after a widespread "customer demand for more wholesome and delicious food options."
- Santa Fe Springs, CA, has the highest concentration of Starbucks stores [5] in the US: 56 stores in a 25-mile radius.
- The most popular drinks across the country [6] vary tremendously. For New York, it's the Pike Place roast, San Francisco's is the soy latte, and Portland's is the eggnog latte.
- The iconic frappuccino was born in 1995 [7]. Starbucks sold 200,000 of them in the first week, when they were only hoping for 100,000. By the end of the month, the numbers reached 800,000.
- By 2011, sales of the frappuccino [8] were $2 billion, 20 percent of the company’s total coffee sales.
- This year, the 20-year anniversary birthday cake frappuccino made an appearance for a limited time, and there were mixed reviews [9].
- Addicted to the iced coffee? Here's how you can get it in a Venti cup for $2 [10].
- You can also make top-selling favorites [11], like the lemon pound cake, at home.
- Think your order is complicated? Ordering the Ariana Grande [12] complicates things a bit more.
- The Trenta is slightly bigger than your stomach, with the capacity to hold 916 milliliters. The stomach on average has a capacity of 900 milliliters.
- There are more than 87,000 [13] possible drink combinations at Starbucks.
- A Grande coffee from Starbucks has 330 milligrams of caffeine [14], more than four times the amount of caffeine in a Red Bull.
- In the week leading up to Christmas 2013, Starbucks sold two million [15] gift cards every day.
- As of March 2015, there are 20,519 store locations. That means we can always depend on Starbucks for our constant coffee needs.