Roasting Plant Partner Interview (Part I)

Good morning... What can I get for you?

I ran across my notes from some personal work I was doing around the history of Starbucks. It never sat well with me that there was this rich history behind the company that nobody seemed interested in archiving or creating some kind of museum. Rather than just let it go, I started to dig a bit. I sent out a few requests for accounts from the early days of Starbucks. Here's some of the notes from a 25-year partner at the Roasting Plant... Enjoy... it's good stuff. It's from Sept. 14, 2006. The photo is part of a bigger photo that is a fixture at the front desk in the Roasting Plant.

What were your first days of Starbucks like?
Well, my older sister worked there already. I used to help her at Bumbershoot at Caffe Starbucks, and the plant manager liked how I worked, so he offered me a job. I started out in production, and I was it, besides the 2 roasters for 6 hours a day, and only 3 days a week. It was pretty mellow, in fact, in the real early days, the office would make margaritas on Friday’s in the afternoon. Everyone knew everyone, and we were a pretty close knit group, maybe 200 people in the entire company including the 4 stores. Howard and I started on the same day although I showed up at 8:00am and he got in around 9:30am... I remember thinking that he had alot of energy...

What was each of the founders like?
Well, I don’t remember Zev Seigel, I think he was gone when I started, but Jerry Baldwin and Gordon Bowker were there. Jerry Baldwin was the talker, or more so than Gordon. Jerry was very friendly and would joke around with you a bit, but when it came to spending money or opening new stores, it would take roughly a year to decide to take the plunge. Gordon was very unique. He was very intelligent and creative, and had a quirky sort of sense of humor, and at times the little kid in him would come out.

How many roasters did we have back when you started?
Well, we had 2 machines, one I think was a 120# or 160 # roaster and the other was a 90# I think. Human roasters, we had 2 main ones, Michael Dice and Steve Smith. There were a couple others before Steve, but I don’t remember their names. Tom Walters* eventually became a roaster, and a couple others, even Howard, but he had a little mishap with green coffee mixing with roasted coffee.

*Tom Walters left Starbucks last year... he was a fixture at the roasting plant and a historian for the company. He used to say "I take the coffee up to the edge, let it look over and then pull it back by the collar..." I (Pat Nerr) spoke with him last year, just before he left and he gave me an earful on how RP partners were treated like 2nd class citizens somewhat...

Describe a day at the roasting plant 24 yrs ago…
Well, I kind of explained it in question #1, but there a couple other things that we did that probably not too many people know about. We used to also roast peanuts in the shell. I guess it made the plant smell really good. We also packaged popcorn in the kernel form. I believe the brand was Blue anchor, but we sold it in our stores. We also used to make extract for FX McRory’s Coffee ice cream. It was a really primitive way, and took forever.

So there you go... Part I of that interview. I'll feed you some more one day...

We'll see you tomorrow for your usual...

Pat Nerr...