Starbucks to add ‘hundreds of thousands of seats’ back to its stores

At the Fast Company Innovation Festival in New York, Starbucks CEO Brian Niccol shared his plan to bring the coffee chain back to its glory days.

There was a time, back in the mid-2010s, when Starbucks was in its prime. It was an era characterized by handwritten notes on cups, signature purple chairs, and coffee houses teeming with people sitting down to enjoy a morning pick-me-up. Starbucks CEO Brian Niccol wants to revive that era—starting by adding hundreds of thousands of chairs back into its stores.