Local is hot.

First Frity-Lay uses its “Lay’s Local” ad campaign to make us think its potato chips — produced at a rate of 10,000 bags per hour — are local. Now Starbucks®, the maker of bitter and burnt coffee, is unbranding itself by opening “Stealth Starbucks.”

What’s a “Stealth Starbucks”? It’s a Starbucks coffee shop that passes itself off as a local, independent coffee shop.

Stealth Starbucks Coffee Shops

Starbucks New "Local" Coffee Shop Under Construction

Starbucks opened its first Stealth Starbucks coffee shop in July of 2009. The shop is called 15th Avenue Coffee & Tea and is located in Seattle’s Capital Hill neighborhood. Apparently no one at Starbucks knew what a local coffee shop was like. So, according to The Seattle Times, Starbucks employees spent over a year visiting three local coffee shops to borrow ideas for creating their concept of “local” coffee shop. One group of “researchers” even carried folders labeled “Observations.” The new 15th Avenue Coffee & Tea coffee shop combines elements from all three real local coffee shops.

Nothing at 15th Avenue Coffee & Tea connects it to the Starbucks brand. (After all, this is an unbranding campaign.) In fact, the Stealth Starbucks coffee shop resembles many local coffee shops in looks and operation. Funky interior. Coffee and tea tastings at 10:00 a.m. sharp. Different options customers can choose for brewing their coffee and tea. Poetry readings and live music. Beer and Wine. And super-premium Starbucks ice cream (in unmarked containers, I assume).

15th Avenue Coffee & Tea -- Starbucks in Disguise

The Stealth Starbucks coffee shop will sell Starbucks coffee, of course — but the packages on all coffee and tea products will have the name 15th Avenue Coffee & Tea instead of Starbucks. The shop also will sell coffee that other Starbucks shops don’t sell. Shop employees also will roast coffee in small batches, the way real local coffee shops do. So hopefully the coffee bought at the Stealth Starbucks shops won’t taste bitter and burnt.

Customers can even suggest local causes the new “local” coffee house can become involved in.

The Starbucks marketers who devised the concept of Stealth Starbucks coffee shop came up with a couple of “innovative” concepts to show that the shop is “local.” As a snack food chain, Starbucks had to standardize its coffee and pastries to maintain the same level of consistency throughout its 16,000 world-wide locations. So in their American shops, they got rid of their baristers and put in automatic espresso makers. The espresso machines guarantee that the coffee will taste the same in every Starbucks shop. But 15th Avenue Coffee & Tea is using baristers to make coffee manually using La Marzocco espresso machines.

Inside 15th Avenue Coffee & Tea -- No Signs of the Starbucks Brand

When it first started out, Starbucks used to buy locally made patstries. But as it expanded, Starbucks dropped local bakeries and turned to using “thaw and serve” pastries. Today, a limited number of bakeries make the pasteries you buy at Starbucks. After they’re baked, the pastries are flash frozen and then shipped to the Starbucks shops throughout the country, where the pastries are thawed out and sold. But 15th Avenue Coffee & Tea Starbucks will buy its pastries from a local bakery.

On November 18, Starbucks opened its second Stealth Starbucks shop, called Roy Street Coffee & Tea, in the same Capital Hill neighborhood as the first. Following Starbucks’ marketing plan, the coffee and tea products at this shop will carry the name “Roy Street Coffee & Tea.” For the sake of variety, coffee and tea tastings at Roy Street Coffee & Tea are at 2:00 p.m. sharp instead of 10:00 a.m. The new shop also will sell a few things not sold in 15th Avenue Coffee & Tea.

Starbucks plans to set up at least one more Stealth Starbucks coffee shop in Seattle. If the shops are successful, Starbucks will roll out Stealth Starbucks shops in other cities. Each shop will have a name that will make people think the shop is part of the community.

Stealth Starbucks Coffee Shops with a Story

Inside 15th Avenue Coffee & Tea -- Not Your Typical Neighborhood Coffee Shop

In my first post on the “Lay’s Local” ad campaign, I mentioned how Frito-Lay preceded it with a “Happiness is Simple” marketing campaign. “Happiness Is Simple” tried to make people nostalgic for the simpler times they believed existed before today’s economic problems arose. The Frito-Lay’s marketers tried to link that nostaliga with Lay’s Potato Chips. In my second post on the “Lay’s Local” ad campaign, I mentioned how industrial organic food comes with a story. The purpose of the story is to make us feel good about the food we’re buying.

It turns out that — like the Frito-Lay marketers — the Starbucks marketers are using both nostalgia and stories in developing and promoting their Stealth Starbucks coffee shops. The Seattle Times provides a telling quote from Michelle Barry. She’s the senior vice president of Hartman Group, a market-research company in Bellevue, Washington. Barry says that

It’s not about nostalgia per se, but more about telling a story and reappropriating some things from the past and re-imagining them in a new environment.

The nostaslgia and the story for the Stealth Starbucks coffee shops come from using salvaged materials in building and furnishing them. For 15th Avenue Coffee & Tea, some of the furnishings came from former Starbucks coffee shops. Other salvaged materials included wood from an old ship and from a retired barn. For Roy Street Coffee & Tea, some furnishings came from a local movie set, a local high school, and antique shops.

The varied materials and furniture give each Stealth Starbucks coffee shop a different look and feel, making it appear that the shops are actually independent and local.

Why Stealth Starbucks Coffee Shops Aren’t Local

The Starbucks marketers want us to think their Stealth Starbucks coffee shops are local and independent. But the shops aren’t. Just to drive the point home, let’s look at some criteria that distinguishes a local coffee shop from a chain coffee shop:

I don’t think many people who like to buy their coffee from local, independent coffee shops will be fooled by the new Stealth Starbucks shops. After all, they’ve deliberately chosen not to buy their coffee at Starbucks. They prefer to support their local communities. They probably already know that $68.00 of every $100.00 spent locally stays in the community. But only $43.00 spend at a chain store such as Starbucks stays in the community.

It will be interesting to see how the Stealth Starbucks coffee shops progress as they’re opened outside of Seattle.

Have any of you been to a Stealth Starbucks coffee shop yet? If you have, write a comment to let us know what you think of them.