Starbucks on Olive off Summit: soon with booze | Restaurants

When Starbucks announced recently that some of its outlets would soon serve wine and beer, on one hand it made sense: any locale serving legal stimulants might as well offer legal depressants, too. If Starbucks added pizza, they could meet all human needs in one venue.

But as I walked past the Starbucks on Olive off Summit Friday evening and saw the large-scale remodelling underway in preparation to its conversion to a wine and beer outpost, it occurred to me the whole idea might be superfluous: Capitol Hill has a a caffeine or alcohol merchant roughly every ten feet and a number of establishments (La Spiga, Cafe Presse, Dilletante) already serve both, plus sumptuous accompanying menus. And is anyone really going to pop into Starbucks for a buzz?

On the other hand, as someone who mixed more than one mocha Frappuccino with Kahlua in my twenties, I can attest to the goodness Starbucks and alcohol can  provide when mixed. So maybe Howard Schultz is onto something here.