by Melody on August 17, 2010
On my journey to explore Starbucks in Gold River, California, I stumbled upon a fabulous store located at 1401 Alhambra (Alhambra and “N” – Store #619) in Sacramento.
This store has one of the larger patio spaces I’ve ever seen! By the way, notice the beautiful blue skies. The weather here is amazing. Though if I had too many days of this warm sunny weather, I would soon miss 55 degrees.
I have to thank Julie at the Starbucks on Sunrise Drive who tipped me off to this great store. She is a black apron, nearly 10-year partner, who knows coffee. Gold Coast Blend is one of her very favorites. I went into her store becuase it’s not too far from the hotel where I was staying, and I mentioned that I was in the area to visit a Clover Starbucks in Gold River. Julie said, “Have you seen the Alhambra Starbucks in Sacramento? It just got it’s 15 year remodel, and it’s beautiful and it _just_ got a Clover.“ Julie left a great first impression. I didn’t stay in her store for more than a few minutes, so I’m not writing a blog post on store #6663 but I think it deserves a shout out.
That was enough of a tip off that soon I was on my way to the Sacramento store on Alhambra. I used the store locator, found it, and soon was there. It is a beautifully designed wood with re-purposed wood themes through out. There is a big exterior sign boasting the Clover.
One more thing that is interesting about this store: They sell a chocolate croissant. I looked at that single croissant sitting in the pastry case thinking, ‘how odd. I don’t think we have that in Seattle.’
I ordered Sumatra from the Clover, grabbed a little Horizon Vanilla Milk, and ordered the chocolate croissant. The store stayed fairly busy with a steady flow of people coming and going from it. I really liked the chocolate croissant! I wouldn’t mind if those were to come to Seattle.
The store was a little messy when I first arrived, but in the fifteen minutes that I sat in the lobby, an enthusiastic partner named Brian came out and did a lobby slide. Pretty soon the traces of spilled sugar from doctoring up coffee were all gone. The store IS beautiful and so I freely took a number of photos. I want to point out the bathroom doors in this store: This might be the first time I have ever featured bathroom doors, but these doors look stunning to me.
While I was there, I was the only person (that I know of) that I heard ordering a Clover. Of course since the Clover really is totally new to their store, they have to go through that process of educating their customers about what is special about it, and the experience of “small batch” coffees by Starbucks. The register barista who helped me was definitely excited to have the Clover! (Her name is ‘Michael’).
The trip to Sacramento during this weekend trip (July 31 and August 1, 2010) produced three episodes – Here’s the complete list of the store reviews in or near Sacramento, California:
Enjoy! Don’t forget, if you like Starbucks store reviews, or want to see other stores that I’ve talked about, click on this link here:
StarbucksMelody store reviews
Here are the pics from the Starbucks at 1401 Alhambra, in Sacramento, California – It always fun to take a virtual tour of other stores:
by Melody on August 4, 2010
Some of my readers might recall a previous blog post I had where I talked about Starbucks Clover store locations. Only a small percentage of Starbucks have the Clover brewer, and these very small number of stores receive special “small batch” coffees to go with their special equipment. Starbucks is definitely working on expanding the number of stores with the Clover brewer, and these “small batch” coffees. Even my blog post from within the past month is now a little out of date. I have heard that there are Clovers now in New Jersey, and Savannah, Georgia and they are not reflected on the list.
In this blog’s comments in a previous blog article, a reader said that Gold River, California had just launched a Clover. I decided I would go visit. The address to this store is as follows:
Starbucks (Store #627)
2095 Golden Center, #10
Gold River, California 95670
(916) 853 9728
Since I was traveling so far, I decided to let them know I was coming. I should let my readers know that there was nothing about this visit that was a surprise. The District Manager greeted me at the store, and we chatted as I had breakfast (Perfect Oatmeal) and a Vivanno. I took a large number of photos for the store, since it is so beautiful. My journey to Gold River was to experience the Clover brewer newly-launched at this site, so I didn’t leave without ordering a Clover cup of coffee. I ordered a tall Sumatra, and much to my surprise, the District Manager offered to let me make it. This was so much fun! The Clover genuinely has a ton of theater to it. There are a lot of steps, and in many ways, since there is some craft to making a cup of coffee, it reminds me of the old days of having manual espresso machines. There really is something special about watching a barista make a drink, just for you, by hand.
On the topic of theater in a Starbucks, I want to call attention to a previous blog post called Deconstructing the Starbucks Experience. That post has never really been an abutment of this blog, however the ideas in it are still important to me, and I think it makes for good reading. Here is the link one more time:
Deconstructing the Starbucks Experience into Three Pieces
A barista in a white shirt walked me through making my Clover cup of coffee. I weighed out 40 grams of coffee for my tall cup of coffee. We ground the coffee, and poured it into the bowl-like area on the Clover, and then mixed the grounds with hot water. In just a minute or so, freshly brewed coffee was ready. At the end, the coffee grounds (now called a ‘puck’ by many baristas) get scraped away and the Clover wiped down. It was a perfect cup of Sumatra.
I owe a huge thanks to the barista in the white shirt for patiently walking me through making my own drink. Unfortunately, I can’t remember her name, which is driving me nuts.
A picture is worth a 1000 words, and so below are a few photos from this store, showing off its beauty, and a couple of pictures of me (don’t laugh please – goofy pics warning!!!!) at the Clover.
Thank you to Gold River, California for hosting my visit, and making me feel like a VIP while I was there!
by Melody on August 2, 2010
Recently I took a quick trip to Sacramento and I decided that while I was there, I would use the opportunity to review a licensed location, far away from Seattle. I rarely talk about the licensed stores but they are an important part of the brand image, and since there was a huge Starbucks right in the lobby of my hotel, I am going to review it.
This Starbucks has an exterior entrance but largely connects to the lobby of the Marriott Hotel located at 11211 Pointe East Drive, Rancho Cordova, CA 95742.
The manager is Vivian and I happened to meet her at the store, as well as another barista named Brett. I ordered a blended strawberry lemonade (it’s very hot outside) and inquired about the store’s participation in My Starbucks Rewards. I learned that this licensed store accepts the Starbucks card as a form of payment, and earns you stars with each swipe however does not participate in the remainder of My Starbucks Rewards perks, such as free milk changes, free syrups and free tall beverage with a purchase of a pound of beans.
Vivian and Brett were extremely friendly, and Brett shared with me his favorite custom drink: A blended strawberry lemonade with raspberry syrup added and whip cream blended in too! He says it tastes like a Starburst. There was a pretty complete array of merchandise available, and standard full beverage menu too. The store boasts a small whole bean wall.
One thing to know is that this store closes fairly early. On weekdays it closes at 4 p.m. and on weekends it closes at 1 p.m.
Would I recommend this store to a friend? Absolutely. It had extremely friendly partners, a spotless lobby, and it looks and feels much like a corporate store. I think I got very lucky because this was a really fabulous licensed Starbucks location. However, since this licensed store really mimics a corporate store, I think there is room for a lot of possible confusion for those customers who are used to free soy milk or free syrups. Also, unlike many licensed stores, this Starbucks has a tip jar too. It seems as though many of licensed locations don’t have a tip jar, though I don’t know if that’s the norm or not, but it seems that way to me.
My trip to the Rancho-Cordova area/Sacramento produced three store reviews, and this is the first of the three. Two more will be posted soon!
I open up the floor to anything about this store review or licensed stores generally…
by Melody on July 17, 2010
Today (July 16, 2010) is the grand opening of the brand spanking new Starbucks inside Children’s Hospital in Seattle. This beautiful new Starbucks is designed to be a warm and welcoming place for children, and a home away from home for the hospital staff, parents, patients, and their unique customer base.
This store offers hot soup! It is the only North American Starbucks-branded store offering soup (the two “streetlevel” Starbucks have soup, but are not logo-ed stores). I went up to the register and ordered soup and passion tea lemonade, since it was a warm day out. Note that the barista, without asking my name, wrote “Starbucks Melody” on the cup. I was pretty stunned. I think I have met him only once before. I tried the soup! I had a small cup of a roasted pepper tomato soup which was just delicious. I recommend having soup if you’re at this store!
Please do not have the mistaken belief that you can just walk right into the store: Because the store is inside the actual hospital, everyone must have a visitor’s badge. I too got a visitor’s badge that said I was here to visit “Cafeteria/Starbucks”. This blog post will be a story mostly told with photos, since this store is so photogenic. I love the old coffee stamp wall art. I have heard that the wall art of coffee stamp images was selected because of the many large and fun to look at animal images: It is true, many of the coffee stamp designs are very children-friendly. The hospital’s main colors (in terms of its style and interior design) are blue and orange, and so the store picks up some of those colors with orange seating in places. The wood for the bar areas is reclaimed wood from the Lake City area of Seattle.
I took lots of photos of the store. Notice that the store has some new version of a warming oven that is much more sleek in design than what is typically found at a Starbucks. While it may look more space age, I asked about it, and learned that it does the exact same thing as the old warming oven: It warms sandwiches, just a different design.
The store hours are Monday through Friday from 6 am to 11 pm, and Saturday and Sunday from 6 am to 9 pm. The walking area between seats is designed to extra wide to accommodate wheelchairs, if needed. I noticed the whole bean wall is tiny, but given the unique needs of this store (serving primarily hospital staff and patients) that almost makes sense. The children who are patients will have no interest in whole bean, and probably coffee for home is not what most of the hospital staff are coming here for. I previously wrote a blog entry announcing that this special store was under construction – If anyone is interested in looking at that, it is here.
What do you think of this fabulous store? (I love it!). Talk about this store or anything Starbucks related. (All the photos here were taken today, July 16, 2010)
On my journey to explore Starbucks in Gold River, California, I stumbled upon a fabulous store located at 1401 Alhambra (Alhambra and “N” – Store #619) in Sacramento. 
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