Tata Starbucks opens 1st Reserve store in Mumbai for premium services

Tata Starbucks, which has completed a decade of operations in a checkered manner in terms of profitability and expansion, on Tuesday announced the launch of its first Reserve store here.

Tata Starbucks, which currently operates 300 stores across 36 cities in India and is an arm of Tata Consumer Products, has added 32 stores in 14 cities this year so far, atop 50 stores added last fiscal.

Adding 32 stores across 14 cities so far is the largest store expansion in a single year, Tata Starbucks chief executive Sushant Dash told PTI here.

Dash said the company, which is yet to report its maiden profit, is out of the pandemic blues with Q1 FY23 revenue more than doubling to Rs 251 crore. In FY22, its topline grew 78 per cent to Rs 636 crore. It reported a net loss of Rs 95 crore.

But Dash insisted the company is cash positive while refusing to offer a timeline on when it will be able to turn profitable.

Starbucks Reserve store aims to elevate the coffee experience of the brand by introducing an intimate, multisensory coffee experience to customers, said Michael Conway, the group president for international and channel development at the Seattle-based Starbucks.

He added that the Reserve store is a premium offering and will be priced accordingly.

However, Conway and Dash did not say how many Reserve stores the company will add in a year.

Conway said India is one of their fastest-growing markets in terms of footprint -- the company considers a market with over 100 stores as a key growth geography -- but did not say how many other markets have over 100 outlets.

Tata Starbucks is an equal joint venture between the Tatas and Starbucks Coffee Company -- which is a first for the Seattle-based company that has since 1971 redefined the coffee experience globally with its over 34,000 stores. The company has over 3,800 partners or employees and serves more than 3,30,000 customers every week.

Tata Starbucks opened the first India store in the tony Horniman Circle area of south Mumbai in October 2012.