Starbucks to take over Borders coffee shops

Starbucks Coffee Company has signed a deal with Borders Books & Music to operate coffee shops within the bookshop’s superstores.

Starbucks Coffee Company has signed a deal with Borders Books & Music to operate coffee shops within the bookshop’s superstores.

As part of the deal, 13 Borders Cafés will be converted into Starbucks concessions by the beginning of May. The move follows trials of the concept at Cambridge and Kingston-upon-Thames over the past ten months. Earlier in the year, Starbucks announced a similar deal with Borders Books in Australia.

A Borders spokeswoman says customer polls in the trial branches found that the Starbucks Cafés drew “very high satisfaction levels”.

All Borders Cafés employees are being offered other jobs within their store, with the chance to train as a musicor bookseller, or have the option of joining Starbucks.

Borders Books & Music is one of the two trading divisions of Borders UK. As well as the superstores, the company also owns 36 Books etc, high street and airport stores.

Starbucks Coffee Company, which has its headquarters in Seattle, is one of the largest coffee retailers in the world and has more than 5,000 retail locations in North America, Europe, the Middle East and the Pacific Rim.

Its closest competitor in the UK is Whitbread-owned Costa Coffee. Costa operates outlets in Abbey National and Waterstones.