Starbucks is launching almost entirely all-new food offerings as of July 12, 2011. The new lunch-type options are called “Bistro Boxes” and come in a variety of choices. The United States versions of the new food boxes include a small piece of dark chocolate branded as “Starbucks Dark Chocolate.” I have heard that the Canadian versions of these Bistro Boxes skips the dark chocolate but is otherwise the same food box.
Here’s a list of the new Bistro Boxes:
- Protein Bistro Box
- Cheese & Fruit Bistro Box
- Chipotle Chicken Wraps Bistro Box
- Sesame Noodle Bistro Box
- Chicken Hummus Bistro Box
- Chicken Lettuce Wraps Bistro Box
- Tuna Salad Bistro Box
- Salumi & Cheese Bistro Box
The salumi meat box, so I have heard, is actually the same salumi offering that has long been available at the Olive Way Starbucks as part of their “elevated” Starbucks experience platform. I’ve had the meat platter many times, and it’s delicious. One of the meats on the Olive Way Salumi plate is very peppery, almost a bit too much for me, but I still like it. I am really excited to try the new food on Tuesday the 12th! They certainly look good. Feel free to weigh in if you’ve tried these, or any conversation related to Starbucks food!
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I used Bing and found a raft of websites that talk about Salumi.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salumi 🙂
I had my Salumi plate today and was very happy with it, though I thought it could have had more cheese in it. They gave me 4 crackers, lots of meat and 4 olives but only 2 pieces of cheese.
We also got a blueberry scone and a double chocolate brownie. We marked one of each out for partner samples and they are both delicious.
Let’s see if I get this right…… Salami fall’s into the Salumi family. The difference? Salumi would be considered strictly cured meat? Salami on the other hand,consists of cured meats, but in the form of sausage. So Salumi is basically a lunch meat, while salami is technically sausage.
@DeniseR and Chgo – The Salumi / Salami thing is kind of funny. Really, I just thought of “Salumi” to be a more broad word for a meat than a “salami” but this conversation shows how much I really know about lunch meat! Not much at all.
And Denise, I just googled “Salumi” too and I realize that you get many results for that little pioneer square restaurant in Seattle that I mentioned earlier. It does seem to have a Seattle aspect to the name – at least in so much that we use the word salumi more here in Seattle than other place because of a popular restaurant. ??
I tried the chicken lettuce wrap Bistro Box today. Delicious flavor. They dont wrap so well, and it’s easier to eat as a salad.
Still love the dark chocolate square.
Anyone else want to review their fave (or not so fave) Bistro Box?
2 words. Grownup Lunchables.
Love these! My fave is sesame noodle.
Grown-up lunchables! I love it! I was hoping to be able to try the Tuna today, but my store didn’t get it! I’m bummed.
Melody – Is the chicken in the chicken lettuce wraps chicken salad or some other kind of chicken?
I will have to try them and the tuna box when I’m next in the states which will be in Seattle in a couple of weeks 🙂
I saw a few of them at the Alaskan Way/WTC Starbucks this afternoon, but didn’t really try one out. At the same time, I realized some of the food got more expensive. I mush prefer something grab-N-go.
I am sooooo gonna try the Chipotle Chicken Wraps Bistro Box next time I visit starbucks (which is about 1 week or so…)! That is such a lot of food for only 6.95. you get more food in this cute box than u get @ Burger king or MacDonald’s. I’m so gonna tell my sister to try it sometime. Cuz she’s always buying that panini sandwich for like 8.25. CRAZY!!!!!!!!!!!!! By the way! Melody can u tell me if the Chipotle Chicken Wraps Bistro Box or the seseme noodles bistro box tastes more bettter!! THANXS! 😀 <3
HEY!!!!! U are soooooo right! I live in canada not the US. And when i was in Starbucks yesterday buying a drink i did notice that the bistro boxs dont conclude chocolate in them! TOO BAD! 🙁
Shia – Welcome! Hey, just curious, but do tell, how did you find this blog, and have you been a Starbucks customer long?? How often do you visit Starbucks?
I simply do not eat at Burger King or McDonald’s anymore, so I don’t have much of a comparison point, but I think the serving size of food in these bistro boxes is a “small” healthier portion.
Which one tastes better is TOTALLY subjective. Some people love the Sesame Noodle one. I’m no fan of tofu and that box doesn’t do anything for me. This is really just a matter of what you like. People who want something with a bit of a spicy flavor might lean towards the Chipotle Chicken box. It’s all just a matter of what you like to eat.
Hey Melody, I was at my favorite place in the world STARBUCKS yesterday and they had the Bistro Boxes set up and i just had to try one and i tried the Chicken Hummus Bistro Box. and let me tell you it was sooo good. It filled me right up. It was like the perfect size meal just for me!! And i visit Starbucks like everyday I’m a usual customer at Starbucks it’s like my daily routine!! 🙂 I love Starbucks the atmosphere is just so warm and cozy and the conversation is amazing… I might have a addiction. 🙂
Hey Melody, i went to my favorite place yesterday Starbucks and i noticed that they were setting up the new Bistro Boxes and i just had to get one and i tried the Chicken Hummus Bistro Box and OMG that was sooo good. It was the perfect size meal for me and it was soo fulfilling. With my Double Chocolate Chip Frappuccino it was a sweet end to that wonderful meal!! 🙂
I had the Chicken Lettuce Wrap today! YUM! (But very high in sodium – yikes!).
Michelle, to answer your question, it’s a ground chicken with peppers and Thai spices and it comes with a Thai Peanut Sauce as well.
Still no Tuna at my store. I may venture out to find one.
kitenarie – thank you. I won’t be able to have that one either then thanks to the peanut sauce.
Bummer, Michelle! But I’m glad I could help rescue you from an allergy problem!
It seems that my store won’t be getting Salumi, or Tuna, as we haven’t gotten them for 2 days in spite of ordering them. 🙁
I’m excited to try the Chicken wraps!! It looks so good, but they don’t all look wrapped very neatly. Is it kind of like a “do it yourself” thing? The sesame noodle one sounds good too!!
Smart move from Starbucks, I think these products are really suitable for those who is always on the move and need to grab a quick lunch. But I can’t help noticing its made of plastic. Maybe Starbucks will replace it with something more Eco-friendly? But I hope it will also reach here in Malaysia, looks very delicious!… =)
Great idea! Has anyone tried the Cheese & Fruit Bistro Box? That sounds good 😀
@Karori: the ‘cheese and fruit’ bistro box is actually the same as it was when it wasn’t called “bistro box’….if that helps. (I was told this at Sbux and it does look to be so, and kind of small, for anything…..but good, likely)
They switched to green apples instead of red.
I like the switch to the green apples, personally. I think green goes better with the cheeses provided.
Thanks, Denise! 😀 We don’t have anything like that here in Japan so I was curious what was actually in the “box.” Wish we could get the cheese and fruit even if we don’t get bistro boxes!
Got to try the Salumi box today at work, I was blown away! Delicious! We are a very high volume lunch sales store, and we sold out of the Chipotle Chicken boxes by 1pm. We are currently limited in how many of each we can order, so I hope our customers try all the different varieties, they are all getting rave reviews.
Think I’ll try the Tuna salad tomorrow……
The ones I have tried I think are good and will sell well. I would love to see Texas get the Salumi but haven’t seen it to order yet. I do love the nut, cheese & fruit one with green apples instead of red. Selling the dog out of iced coffee of late with the 100+ heat and the boxes go well for a lighter fair on the quick.
Wow. I haven’t tried the bistro boxes yet. I hope to stop by Sbux this weekend. They all sound so good. I didn’t read all the comments yet. What is the price point for these? (I’m sorry if this has already been covered)
I had the Chicken Chipotle Box today and LOVED it. I even ate the coleslaw. And I usually can’t stand coleslaw. I didn’t mind putting my wraps together either. The way I figure it, that way I can make it taste just the way I want to!
I was under the impression that the Fruit and Cheese plate is different. It includes nuts and dried fruit as well as the other stuff, doesn’t it? Plus, I think the crackers are different? I haven’t looked at it closely because I’m not a huge fan of cheese, and I heard there would be nuts. Also, we never seem to have any in the store – they’ve been selling out that quickly.
Now that they’ve been around for a few days, I’ve noticed that the Salumi and the Noodle boxes aren’t as popular as the rest. A lady in our d/t this morning bought ALL of our protein boxes.
The protein plates were always a hit at my store so it doesn’t surprise me someone would do that.
These pushed the Jones soda out of even our case-even though we can’t and don’t carry these. I cannot tell you how many of these we sell! Kind of a fail.
@CaBarista – Wait. Let me see if I got this right. Your store does not have the Bistro Boxes. Your store had to stop selling the Jones Soda to make room for Bistro Boxes that you’re not getting? That seems silly to stop selling the Jones Soda. And that surprises me that you even have Jones soda. Starbucks stopped selling Jones Soda in U.S. stores yaers ago. We have izzy’s right now. There was a brief experiment with Dry Sodas (and I wish they’d kept Dry soda!) but that did not launch nationally – Izzy’s everywhere in the US.
@Denise-I am with you 100%. What bothers me even more is that it’s in almost identical packaging as the Gazebo was last year. Do they think customers are stupid? People LOVE Gazebo! The “iced coffee” (again, why not call it what it really is?) is not great. I like our iced coffee, but don’t love it. Gazebo kicks it’s butt hard. I’ll be bringing Kenya home instead. I was pumped for a long time (months) that Gazebo was coming. Not very impressive. As for it being added to core coffees, I’m wondering if it was a cheap way to say “hey, we added this coffee, quit asking for that!”. Could be totally wrong as that’s just a stab in the dark.
Melody -starbucks won’t let any cafe order jones any longer.
Since Jones is a Canadian company they sell better in Canada in general, so that is probably why.
I had no idea they were doing this! Haven’t seen it yet in store but I can’t wait!
@Rachel – Hope you find them! Write back and let us know what you think. I know that not all stores get all varieties, and some stores are “remote” markets, and don’t get them at all.
I just had the chipotle chicken wrap today. very good and filling.(the only one I have seen that LOOKS appealing to me) I can see buying this one once in a while….
Spotted your link on #blogchat and wanted to stop and say hi! I’m a huge Starbucks fan. Fortunately, there is one not too far from me where I can drive through on my way to work. I always stop by on Sundays too for a little treat.
I haven’t seen these in my local store yet, because I mostly use the drive through, but I’ll have to go in and see if they have them.
I discovered something awesome today. The Chipotle Chicken Box is only 5 WW points. Hooray! 🙂
@PattiB – Thank you for stopping by! I love meeting other Starbucks fans. By the way, on twitter I am both @sbuxmel and @sbuxmelodyblog – The @sbuxmelodyblog is a profile for those people who don’t like to see much chatter (or very little) in a profile stream, and would rather see links pushing at them. I hope you get to try the Bistro Boxes. Not all Starbucks stores have them. Some are too “remote” to have them, so I hope yours gets them too.
And I just found you on twitter and followed you there. I hope if you “like” this blog that you’ll like the facebook page for it – see link in right hand side column!
Nice meeting you again! I love how #blogchat connects people. I am a huge fan of @MackCollier.
~Melody
Asked a partner yesterday how the sales of the new bistro boxes were going and she said although they are selling it seems from the initial offering the sales are somewhat flat. The excitement has died a bit. Curious as to how the sales are going in other parts of the country?
We have ordered down tremendously. 1 chicken wrap and 1 sesame every other day. We never received(or can order) the salami/cheese or the tuna salad one. I made creative samples the other day(made the chicken wrap from the box and put them in sample cups for people to try & put together an assortment of noodles with the cucumber salad in a sample cup). I see the price point being the main concern for my customers.
We are selling quite a few of them, though the trend seems to be that we sell a whole whack in the beginning of the week and then taper off towards the end. We’ve never sold a lot of lunch on the weekends though. Weekends are about breakfast sandwiches for us. I had another manager email last week to see what we were doing because we were the only store in our district making our target.
Diele – it’s a shame you can’t get the Salumi plate, that one is my favourite. Though it looks like it’s quite a lot bigger in the US than what we have. I was looking at the Bistro Boxes today in a store and noticed that it appears to be the same size as the lunch boxes, ours is a snack sized box. That reminds me, I’m going to find a Starbucks tomorrow at lunch time, I want to try the boxes I can’t get at home.
I got an email today saying I can be part of a rewards/sweepstakes offer to get free bistro boxes if I text a code. I appreciate the email, however, I think SB is short sighted in only offering this option. Am I missing something? Are there are ways to participate?
@purple1: I got the same email ith the text-possibility. I agree, think they need more than ‘texting’ as an option. I think the premise is that everyone texts! (I only do it minimally)
I also think I notice a decline in the ‘bistro boxes’ sales. I don’t really know, just kind of think I see that. I think they are/were ? a good idea but I THINK maybe alot of people are realizing it’s much easier to just eat a sandwich at Sbux??? than put together a chicken wrap, etc. I don’t know….just throwing that out there.
Thanks Denise for your comment. I too do not text much. I am really surprised with the way people connect and it varies from one person to another that SB would not want to exclude anyone from this offer.
@denise r and purple1 — be careful with that email (or was it a text?), it is most likely a phishing/malware scam. It may look official, but it may be a fake. Be wary.
@DadC…yikes!!! thanx for that! It was (what appeared to be) an email from ‘MyStarbucksRewards’…with all their usual stuff on it….. options to go to your account etc. It wasn’t a text so, I hope you’re wrong but definitely something to ALWAYS keep in mind! Thanx again.
(I know there was some virus out there a while back …this spring…that looked exactly like it came from Microsoft….. and if you did what it said (some dwnld or opening),BOOM! it was totally a virus. If you didn’t look very carefully, you could never tell it wasn’t a normal Microsoft blurp.)
totally separate (again) from all this: just was talking with my place’s SM…and I kind of knew this anyway. They absolutely cannot keep up with the VIA quotas..and they just keep piling on more and more and more! and always more to come…now BBlend on the way. It’s become insane. Personally, I think they should keep the original two, the “for ICED” and the decaf in the cafes and put all the rest in the groceries. It’s just too much and then their sales look bad. (and then maybe the ocassional special for like Christmas etc. …which is limited) but that’s it.
Dad Cooks thanks from me too. I did not do anything with the email because I really do not text so deleted it. It did seem sort of odd that they only offered one option for the offer!
@DadCooks @Purple @DeniseR – I saw the email about texting to enter into a contest. I’m sure it is real. The official @Starbucks profile on twitter was tweeting about it. Nonetheless, I quickly deleted the email. I am just not much of a texter.
Melody I find it so interesting that it seems that there are many people that do not text often and then why would SB just do a promotion with the only option being texting. Wouldn’t you think their marketing people would know that they need to expand how to get into this promotion besides texting?