Starbucks Rolls Out Compact Café Prototype to Re-Capture the “Third Place”

Starbucks is testing a new, smaller-footprint café model that debuted in San Antonio and has since opened in Manhattan and four other sites. The prototype retains hallmark features—plush seating, a glass-case bakery display, and an espresso bar—but compresses the counter into a “folded bar” layout to fit narrower urban spaces. The redesign follows a 2025 $1 billion restructuring effort that aimed to revive the brand’s “third place” appeal after a period of “pick-up-only” stores, which CEO Brian Niccol shut down in July 2025 as “overly transactional.” Those earlier locations lacked seating and relied heavily on mobile ordering, a strategy the company says contributed to sales declines.

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She emphasized that the compact cafés still offer varied ordering options—person-to-person, delivery, app, and drive-thru—so customers can choose how they interact with the brand. Clark added that feedback from the 1,000 remodeled stores has informed the prototype’s design, describing the process as “symbiotic” and “very positive for both sides.”

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• Six compact-prototype locations are currently operating.

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• About 30 % of Starbucks customers use mobile ordering, according to the company.

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• Since the 2025 redesign, 1,500 existing North American stores have been refreshed, and Starbucks plans to open roughly 5,000 new locations in the coming years.

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• Same-store US sales turned positive in the most recent quarter, signaling early signs of recovery.

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• “These particular new formats are really stretching us to be more adaptable to different types of location, different shapes and different sizes, but they still hold all of the aspects of the (coffee house) experience,” — Dawn Clark, the company’s senior vice president of global concepts and design

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