The Starbucks that launched wasn't really intended to be a coffeehouse, so much as a local boutique bean retailer. The grandiose plans for world domination didn't form until Howard Schultz took over, years later. By then, the founders were long gone. That's not meant to take away from the whole "humble beginning" motif, but the Starbucks story is more realistically told as that of a savvy businessman buying a moderately successful local business from his former bosses, and making the brand much bigger than the founders could manage.
The location was at the corner of Virginia and Pike Place, where this first-ever Starbucks was in business until January of 1977, when it moved to its current "original" store one block south. The current store in the Market is actually the sixth one, since there were stores in University Village, Capitol Hill, Edmonds, and Bellevue, along with the original-original, before the present Market Starbucks opened.
[1]: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2009479123_s...
I've never been in, but I wonder why they chose Seattle as the test-bed for this sort of thing. There are so many cities that don't have a vibrant local coffee-shop culture (there are at least three indy shops within a two block radius of my apartment & the mom&pop convenience store across the street has an espresso machine). Why not try it out someplace where the consumers aren't as discriminating and aren't as likely to resent them for doing this?
I'm not (just) being provocative. I'm not even sure how you'd go about determining what caused the "Starbucks revolution", or even that it's possible to be certain about historical causation (as some history academics have suggested).
