Starbucks has opened up their first Evolution Fresh juice bar. Yesterday (March 19, 2012) was the grand opening day. I decided to go check it out this morning! I arrived at about 9:00 am (on March 20, 2012) and fortunately there was a short lull in customers so I could take some photos. The Evolution Fresh bar is a small space located immediately next to the Starbucks in Bellevue Square. (That Starbucks is known as “The Lodge.”). The space used for the Evolution Fresh was once part of the seating area for the adjacent Starbucks. I can definitely remember when that was one very large Starbucks store. Once upon a time, that was a Hear Music flagship Starbucks store! Since the store was a flagship concept store, it was originally much larger than a typical Starbucks.
The space that now occupies Evolution Fresh was the area that had all the CDs for the Hear Music store. You can get a bit of sense of what it looked like as the Hear Music Starbucks in this photo:
The wall which once has a ton of CDs to browse through now has the lunch and dinner offerings available at Evolution Fresh:
It might be hard to see in the above photo, but the above signage states that the store offers Starbucks Pike Place Roast coffee available as a Pour Over.
The store is set up with two areas to order: One area is just for juices only, and the other is the breakfast and lunch line. The juice area has one of the most eye-catching digital menuboards I’ve ever seen. The display changes frequently showing off fruit and vegetable images. However, if at any time a customer wants to look at just the menu, the customer presses a button at the counter. So, here is a series of photos to try to explain what I mean about the menuboard:
One more curiosity that I have to point out is the Evolution Fresh bicycle. I asked about it, and apparently Evolution Fresh is ambitiously thinking about a small local delivery option. I don’t know how that would work. What I do know is that the bicycle makes a great photo prop! While I was there, I ran into several familiar partners all checking out Evolution Fresh too, and they were having a good time taking photos of the new partner face of “Evolution Fresh delivery.” Somewhere out there, there is an adorable photo of a partner named Heather as the face of Evolution Fresh bike delivery. Be sure to check out this bike!
(Edit: In reading the comments to this article, I realize that the bike was built by Metrofiets, a bike company based out of Oregon.)
I ordered a carrot-apple-banana-cinnamon smoothie type beverage. It only comes in a 16 ounce size. I couldn’t finish it, but apparently it may be possible to order one drink and split it into two smaller cups, as I did see someone around me doing that. It was definitely a delicious smoothie. It appears that there are several freshly pressed juices ‘on tap’ that were pressed at Evolution Fresh’s main processing facility. Also in the beverage area is very large number of fresh fruits which are then added into the juices (and blended, obviously) to create delicious smoothies.
By the way, I discovered while I was there that you CAN pay with your Starbucks card! I was quite surprised about that.
If you want to visit, here is the address:
Evolution Fresh
545 Bellevue Way
Bellevue, Washington
425 453 1089
I’ve heard lots of rumor about the site of the second Evolution Fresh scheduled to open up, and will be in downtown Seattle. I cannot wait to be able to write about the next store which should be very close to home for me. 🙂
Here are just a few more photos from today’s visit. Enjoy!
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I was just tweeted that I hoped you would blog about this soon! And sure enough, here it is! Great article. I wonder if their food is good. A healthy salad sounds really good right now! And thinking about these smoothies is making me kinda hungry! I can’t wait as more information comes out about Evolution Fresh! I’m crossing my fingers that they have a big display at leadership conference this year!
Hey Melody! Thanks for the photo of the Metrofiets cargo bike in the review! We had a ton of fun making it! The store looks great and we are super stoked to have played a small part.
WOW, that place is BEAUTIFUL. I love that there are separate lines for the juice and the food. I often think that one line in the store that was for just brewed coffee could speed up the stores pace significantly. Especially for the customer who wants to get in and then get out quickly. Partners know who that guy is…generally 40 in a suit glancing all around giving you the LET’S GO eyes. Anyways I digress.
I want the Turkey and Caramelized Onion sandwich…right now!!! And I love the juice menu board, I read that it changes as the partners pull on the taps to create the mixes. I also read that there was a mock juice bar (probably at the SSC) where the new team trained.
Did you notice what their dresscode is like Melody?
Well, it certainly looks like a beautiful place to go and have fancy juice drinks, food and not coffee. and that’s what bothers me a bit. I feel there are areas where Sbux (ie; COFFEE) is just going backward…like this. I realize this will likely generate lots of $$$ for Sbux but am just seeing, what I think, are sacrifices in the areas that brought me to Sbux in the first place…..coffee and then a few other things.
It’s a very nice post Melody, and I appreciate the info.
Becca, I read the same thing! Apparently the EvolutionFresh team was trained for weeks, if not MONTHS, in a full-scale model of the store prior to opening. I’m glad we’re putting such a strong effort in to this!
Maybe there’s a way to bring Evolution’s capabilities in to our stores beyond CPG products. What if the stores were able to feature fresh, seasonal Vivanno flavors produced by Evolution? Maybe we could work out some way to make our smoothies easier to blend in the process. I’m not sure, but I really do think this knocks down any red tape standing in the way of improving those drinks. They’re always my favorite thing to have on a hot day! This is exciting!
Thanks Mel 🙂
@alexander…maybe we can sneak in and in the middle of the night and mess with the secret juice bar.
I agree that the Vivanno’s have room to grow. I think the first thing that would have to happen is that ALL stores start with fresh banana’s. We use frozen and the quality is hit and miss for me. On the rare days when we are out of them and we buy fresh from the supermarket we know that we have to get more because the baristas will drink them!!!
I have always been in a fresh market which is nice because we sell quite a bit of bananas as well.
I agree. Why not get a boost in RTD&E sales as well as improve the quality of the beverage? You get two sales out of one stock item, as opposed to a lower-quality sale from one. I love our Vivannos, I just feel like they can improve. Orange Mango all the way! 🙂
Or better yet, why not develop some recipes that don’t need bananas in the first place? Wild Berry Blast? Acai? Pomegranate Peach?
Hi Melody – I’ve been very busy lately but just had to stop by to read up on this store – Like Cam, I knew you’d have something posted.
The store looks awesome. I’ve been to that Starbucks location, but not when it had a Hear Music. (I think the only Hear music location(s) I ever went to were in Chicago (in Woodfield mall, and perhaps on Rush street)).
I like this concept and hope it expands. Jamba Juice is all over the place and their stuff is not the healthiest smoothie you could choose. They could stand to have some competition.
Offering Pike is an interesting choice, but if they’re going to serve coffee, I can see that’s the one SBUX would choose to serve. Perhaps they should reconsider that selection and go with Casi Cielo. Since Canlis is now offering Intelligentsia instead, these stores could be the year-round “premium location” where Casi could be served.
I also could see the opportunity for these stores to expand the Tazo line-up. Your previous post about the Tiazzi, and some of the other juice/tea blends that Starbucks has offered in the past, could get a leg-up in a store like this.
Thanks for posting this! I’ll have to check it out the next time I’m in Seattle.
@CD – I love your idea of serving Casi Cielo here. It would give the store a certain feeling of exclusivity – And Starbucks needs that in oh so many ways. And on top of it all, given the very premium price tag for a smoothie (you easily spend $6 to $7 for a 16 ounce smoothie), it’s a fit in terms of the customer demographics probably.
It only coincidentally worked out that Tiazzi was back to back with Evolution Fresh, but I definitely think it’s fun to read the two articles back to back – Innovation, innovation, innovation.
CD – Hope you slow down soon!
@Alexander – Totally agree. I genuinely like the smoothies, and it seems like NOW is the time to give them a big refresh! Perhaps Starbucks doesn’t want to feel like it’s a race to find the newest flavor. With the Frappuccino, there was a time when innovation was ‘what’s new with the Frappuccino’ mean is it malted? are java chips new? and so on and so forth … Perhaps Starbucks doesn’t want to find themselves down the same road with the smoothies?? I don’t know. I’d like to possibly see even a yogurt-based smoothie in the future.
Great post! I love the look of the store and would think it would make a customer feel welcomed. I enjoy fresh juices and wonder how these stores would do throughout the country. Also, I think they need to create a smaller size for customers.
Melody, thanks for the pictures! What a beautiful store! I really like the digital menu board. There’s a video on the SBUX website that shows the menu changing when the juice partner pulls on the lever.
[…] The Evolution Fresh delivery vehicle.(Photo: StarbucksMelody.com/Metrofiets) […]
I have also been to that Starbucks store, when I visited Seattle last summer, we actually stayed in Bellevue, right across from there. I don’t anticipate I’ll be back there anytime soon, however I know my mom will be, I’ll have to tell her about it.
I think I remember reading somewhere that Evolution Fresh juices will replace our bottled Naked Juices at some point with more variety of flavours. Can’t wait to see that happen! We sell a lot of those bottles, so I think adding some variety will really delight our customers. It would be great to have some new (or just different) smoothie flavours too. I imagine that’ll come after they’ve had the chance to see which of their options customers are most drawn to.
I am sitting at Evolution Fresh right now. on my kindle, sorry so sloppy. It’s 12:50, and I came for lunch because I really wanted to try the lunch options. Every seat is taken. The lines are fairly long, and it is very noisy. This lentil, wild rice bowl is amazingly delicious but the portion size is huge. chaos. I assume this will get better. It looks like there are plenty of ssc partners who have come to check out the place probably making it very busy. There is a guy sitting near me with a great looking Starbucks Hawaii tshirt that I wish i could take s photo of. I think this will simmer down to something normal when the novelty wears off. Prices are truly a little high for my budget. This bowl was 8.75 then add $2.50 for steak and $1.50 for “stock” which seems to turn a salad to soup. My bottled “sweet Green” was $5.95 which seems about right, but all in all a bit pricey. Ahhhh the lunch rush appears to be dieing down. I can hear myself think now.. Food truly is absolutely delicious and healthy.
Oops the “stock ” is $1.75 not $1.50.
Bummer the guy with the Hawaii tshirt left,and his whole group is gone. There is no polite way to say ” can admire your shirt and have a photo of your broad chest? ” so that group left without me ever saying a word to them.
It is sort of odd that the prices would be this high especially since you would think that SB would want to introduce customers to this new store. I would think the high prices might get people angry. Enjoy your lunch. Maybe the Hawaii guy will come back!
Melody – isn’t Bellevue an affluent area? Maybe the idea is to put these stores in that kind of environment?
@Michelle – Bellevue is definitely affluent. It’s like the Orange County of Washington State. I think that Evolution Fresh would fit perfectly in Laguna Beach, Newport Beach, and other spots in the OC. It pairs perfectly with “Native Foods” which is popular in So. Calif:
http://nativefoods.com/
^ My brother loves that place to eat! I’ve been there many times when home in Calif!
I have a cousin who lives in this area (Bellevue)….I’ve seen his house and I can tell you all the way from Chicago, yes, as Melody said, wealthy area.
I love fruit juices and I had no idea they offer that at Starbucks, thanks for the info! carrot-apple-banana-cinnamon smoothie is definitely on my list now. Being in France There is ONE single starbucks in my city, I know it’s surreal, but the only SB there is packed all day….I guess it’s inly a start.
Hi Gael! Thank you for finding this blog. Just so we are both on the same page, this blog article is about the one single Evolution Fresh store located in Bellevue, Washington. It’s not what you’ll find inside a Starbucks.
((Though since you’re in France, you’re in a very unique market. From what I’ve heard in the past, there are a few European markets that have fresh squeezed OJ I thought it was France and Spain???? I could have that wrong. And France has two espresso roast profiles!))
You made it very clear now, Melody. That’s a disappointment, though 🙁
I confirm French are fond of fresh squeezed OJ, and I’m personally dealing with a severe addiction to vegs/fruit juicing. Of course, I indulge in straight black and rough starbucks espresso’s too when I go to the US 🙂
Thanks for the updates. Makes me wish I lived in a bigger place where I might one day have a chance to see some of these places.
I was really excited about the juice bar, especially since I just started the “reboot your life” juice regime. But alas, I am disappointed, this is pasteurized process juice you are selling not fresh made juice. I was hoping for somthing like at Whole Foods where they juice the carrots, kale etc right in front of you in a steel juicer. Lots of vitamins and minerals and packed full of nutrients. I guess it was too good to be true that I might have another place to stop and buy real freshly made juice. This Starbucks juice bar is no better than jamba juice lots of calories and no nutritional value. I mad stop in to buy salads and such but I will skip the juice. Maybe starbucks might consider adding a juicer to there juice bar, where us health conscious could actually gather and buy real juice. Just a thought!!!
Wow….the amount sugar in these juices just keeps the American public getting fatter and fatter and adding to the obesity problem. Pumping the regular customers with coupons to drink this is obscene! Starbuck’s…..try to get some healthier choices! Just because they’re made our of fruit doesn’t make them a healthy choice. 27 grams of sugar in your mango juice is outrageous! Watch out people. READ YOUR LABELS!!!!!