Forty-four years ago, Howard Schultz packed up his life, loaded his golden retriever, Jonas, into his 1979 Audi, and drove cross-country from New York City to Seattle with his wife, Sheri. He was headed toward a city he barely knew, but would eventually become where he built his massive coffee empire and a brand we all know today: Starbucks.
At the time, Sheri was the “breadwinner,” with a design career, Shultz said in a LinkedInpost on Wednesday. But Sept. 7, 1982, changed the course of the couple’s lives: It was the day Schultz started a new job “at a place called Starbucks.”
“Back then, the Pike Place Starbucks only sold whole bean coffee,” Schultz said. “Today, it’s the most visited Starbucks in the world. The history of the company is bound up in the very foundation, walls, and floorboards of our first store in the city’s historic market.”…