As for what this roastery means to the 23,000 other Starbucks locations around the world: The best ideas will be recycled back into the business. The sharper-edged geometric counters, especially, are a departure from the raw wood, sliced tree aesthetic that’s defined Starbucks in the past, and Muller hints that we’ll likely see more of that to come.
This Willy Wonka Starbucks is also indicative of a larger trend across industries. It’s the epitome of the overshare, where businesses reveal their innermost workings as a way of connecting with consumers and strengthening their brand. And it’s a place where Starbucks can both give you a hint of its mechanized scale—where it produces just 0.3% of the 500 million pounds of beans it roasts a year—while publicizing that global mechanism in palpable wood, leather, and copper. The new Starbucks roastery is not just a place for Starbucks to put on a show. It's an embodiment of what Starbucks is: a gargantuan machine that begs to be touched.