Today (November 13, 2012) is the launch of holiday 2012 at Starbucks! Lots of little gifts, holiday food items, and Christmas Blend coffee are back in stores. I dropped by the Fourth and Seneca Starbucks early this morning to get a first glimpse of what’s landed in stores for this season.
4th and Seneca (Store #392)
1125 Fourth Avenue
Seattle, WA 98101
206 623 0860
It is a photogenic large store, which is selling the Verismo, has a Clover, and it’s on my way to work! I took all the photos below at about 5:30 a.m. to 6:30 a.m., so unfortunately there’s no natural light coming in the windows.
The theme this year is “Rekindle” and it welcomes you on the door:
There is large signage for the holiday drinks (Gingerbread Latte, Peppermint Mocha, and Caramel Brulee Latte) next to a Rodarte-designed card and tumbler display:
This year there is a tree (I don’t recall there being one last year), as well as lots of little gifts. This year’s bearista bear is cute!
I was happy to see the Grandma’s Turkey Sandwich is back too. It has a red sticker on it, making it very easy to spot in the RTD case. I haven’t tried this year’s turkey sandwich, but I definitely liked it in the past. The peppermint cake pops have returned also, as well as the traditional cranberry bliss bar. This year there is a snowman cookie too. I didn’t take photos of every food item.
As many people have already started talking about in comments, there is an interesting little paper book that has beverage coupons in it. The booklet appears to retail for $25.00.
And just to round this out, here are a few more photos of this store:
This was a big overview of what you may find at your local Starbucks for this year’s holiday season. What does your store look like? At some point, I will do a few blog articles where I shine a spotlight on specific holiday items that are especially intriguing to me. Obviously I can’t cover them all, but there are things like a peppermint chocolate covered treat in a box that I want to try. And there are some gift items that I want to take a closer look at.
Feel free to talk about anything holiday-related!
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I’m in Canada, where we are Thanksgiving Blend-less (our Thanksgiving obviously being long come and gone), so our Red Cup day was November 2nd! We’ve had this exact display since then, plus the Christmas Blend ‘Blonde’ Roast on brew daily (that you mentioned weeks ago in your post). We also have a Wall Street Journal gift set that’s interesting, and a new ‘gold cup’ ornament along with the 2012 red cup, to hang on your tree (probably mingled in with one of your pics there). Loving your holiday comments and pics; our stores didn’t get a new ‘key chain’ small Starbucks card for holiday 2012 (xmas version) like several baristas told me was upcoming. Interested to see if you guys do, and if you guys get the cranberry white mocha that I keep hearing is in the US at various places. We also have the skinny peppermint mocha (from last year) on our sign-age. Love the Red Cups! :))
Oh- and we also have Christmas Blend K-cups, which make me happy since I have a Keurig 🙂 Obviously your stores will too. I’m easily pleased 🙂
I was going to email you because I feel like this is getting earlier and earlier each year or maybe I’m just getting older 🙂
I believe Christmas Blend use to arrive the day after Thanksgiving and would remain in stores until supplies last. Some rural stores were still brewing it well into January and some would be out of it just before New Years Day.
Either way, our local Store (Hanover, NH) has it on Clover along with Sun Dried Ethiopia and all signage was being put up at 7AM when I arrived this morning. Holiday treats are out as well.
It obviously seems that this store is bigger than my local store and the displays here are so much better. I wish the displays in our store looked more inviting. After the initial acknowledgement of a new season, I just do not feel the wow factor. I like the Rodarte themed items.
Thanks for the update, Melody. I was in a local store on Monday and it was full of boxes of new stuff! Like Christmas day.
I did see an Advent Calendar that looked like more than the traditional flat, small-box Advent calendar. Does anyone have the details to describe?
@AndrewJackson – I hate to tell you this but the holiday launch comes at about the exact same time every year, and has for years. Take a look at my last blog post:
http://www.starbucksmelody.com/2012/11/13/starbucks-november/
^ All those dates for the Gingerbread Latte, the card, the Caramel Brulee Latte – Holiday launch dates – So holiday launch is always somewhere between about the 11th and the 17th, very roughly.
I will say that what’s happening now is that Starbucks has less control of rouge stores that start putting things out earlier. I can tell by comments here and tweets that some things sneak out early – cards, via, small things sneak out earlier. And, the Sun Dried Ethiopia isn’t supposed to be out until next week! And you’ve got it out in your stores.
Love this time of the year, especially in Starbucks stores. I tried the Christmas blend yesterday but thought that the Thanksgiving blend had more boldness to it. I’m excited to try the Christmas Espresso Roast. Also thanks to an awesome district manager, I purchased a container of gingerbread syrup so I can make gingerbread coffee when I am not in a store.
Also looking forward to see if Starbucks will be doing the 12 days of Christmas again 🙂
@Amy – Good question. I hadn’t even thought about the 12 days of Christmas yet! Last minute Christmas shopping is me! Does anyone reading this know if it is coming back?
I also forgot to say that I think I really need the Snowman mug and the stacking mug!
Oh whew, I feel much better now! One of the Targets in New Orleans already had a lot of their Christmas stuff out last weekend, so I was puzzled when the actual free-standing store in Metairie and my Target did not have anything yet. The only merchandise the Starbucks on my college campus had out was the adorable Nutcracker Bear. Glad that you cleared up my confusion. 🙂
This launch is ‘late’ for us Canadians, lol– lack of Thanksgiving means we get Red Cups and Christmas Blend November 2nd, though I did hear some downtown Toronto/big city stores, had them the day after Halloween. But, hey, I like it that way 🙂
@Theatrenut, this is the advent calendar in our stores: http://blogs.starbucks.com/blogs/customer/archive/2012/11/01/count-down-the-holidays-with-a-starbucks-classic.aspx
12 Days of Christmas WILL BE BACK!
@LoriCarstens – Thank you! Great to hear!
@Melody: I wrote elsewhere (or here, elsewhere), this is the first time I remember seeing a full sized Christmas tree in Sbux. I really like it. Need to go to “Streets”, I can only imagine!
@theatrenut: the Advent calendar is a series of boxes, not flat…and some chocolate involved. More like a series of building blocks, best I can tell.
and re: the snowman cookie, I know lots of people who will be glad to see the return of the cookie. There used to always be seasonal (all seasons) cookies…..and then they faded away.
Also, re: Advent calendar, since I bought one– the boxes separate (see link I posted earlier) and stand up..sort of look like separated mini houses. I also peeked ahead (bad, I know!), and though I won’t ruin the surprise, there are some great inedible treats involved, as well 🙂
Denise R is the snowman cookie good? I am sitting at my local SB now and I really think the size of the store determines obviously how the displays look. In some ways I wish there could be displays geared more to the community that the store serves, but I realize that is not realistic.
On my phone. Hard to type. I subscribe to Starbucks newsroom announcements. Just saw big news: Looks like Starbucks is buying Teavana!?!
http://news.starbucks.com/article_display.cfm?article_id=723. Hope that works. Copy paste on a phone requires coordinated thumbs. 😉 That’s the official announcement that they’re buying Teavana.
Melody thanks for the info sounds wonderful. What do you think this means bottom line? Will there be more tea cafes?
Very festive and fun! It’s getting me more and more excited each day.
Melody to clarify my question a bit more- will this purchase of teavana mean the SB stores will sell
And brew loose teas?
Purple1 and others: expect store expansion along Teavana lines first. I would expect adding Teavana to Starbucks stores would come later.
“Powered by Starbucks existing infrastructure, Starbucks plans to continue to grow and extend Teavana’s already-successful 300 mall-based stores as well as add a high-profile neighborhood store concept that will accelerate Teavana’s domestic and global footprint.”
From the press release: http://news.starbucks.com/article_display.cfm?article_id=723
I would be interested in buying the advent calendar; however, I would be more interested in the suprises. I think that they are five. Could someone post hints on what the surprises are? Are they discounts to anything or actual objects? It’s $30, so I want to be sure that the surprises are great value.
Thanks!
@Brian- I only peeked ahead at one surprise (the rest of my bad peek-age revealed the chocolate bars), so there are four more that I don’t know. I don’t want to ruin the surprise (though if you want, I can email you privately!), however it was a voucher redeemable in the new year, for an item that’s priced normally (in Canada, at least) above $10. So I am assuming all of the surprises are vouchers redeemable in the new year, relating to specific items?
@loribonari Thanks for your help! If there is at least one surprise like the one you have mentioned, then it sounds like the five surprises will be great! Therefore, it is very likely that I will buy one and be surprised!
I was at Starbucks today and wanted to get this calendar, but the thought of paying $30 to buy 25 pieces of chocolate was a bit much. Therefore, to me, the surprises would need to offer a great value in order to motivate me to buy it.
Thanks again for your hint, loribonari!
@Purple1: the snowman cookies are frosted, as opposed to sugared. I personally like the sugar cookies better but I was with someone who had the snowman and thought it was good.
Also, another treat is a box of dark choc. covered graham crackers, with peppermint sprinkles. There are 5 in a box for $5.95….and . this can be redeemed as a ‘reward’. They’re individually wrapped so one, for me, is fine and satisfying. Very good, really.
And, there’s also Verismo Christmas blend pods….not just Keurig. (I didn’t even notice the Keurig ones but I was not seeing everything).
I love the Christmas stuff this year. One of the things we sold out of almost immediately was a tall ceramic tumbler much like the one we sell year round, except that it’s off white and appears to be quilted, the logo is stamped into the cup rather than being painted on. It is really pretty. Another was a hammered gold coloured stainless tumbler (though I think my partners bought all of those).
We’re sold out of advent calendars already.
Some of the food we have is different too. Our holiday turkey sandwich is on rosemary foccacia this year with the cranberry on the side. This is a huge improvement, the bread is delicious and the cranberries don’t make the bread soggy (like it did in the past). Not sure what the snowman cookies are like in the US but ours are made from shortbread and are covered in chocolate, rather than being sugar cookies with icing. We also have the most delicious muffins…salted caramel chocolate muffin. The caramel filling was apparently created by La Boulange. I have had far too many of these! We have the other holiday staples too.
Oh Purple1 – I doubt we’ll get the Teavana teas into Starbucks anytime soon, though I saw some really pretty Tazo boxes (rebranded) posted on twitter yesterday. January tends to be tea time (at least in Canada) so I wonder if we’ll see some of the new Tazo flavours in the stores then?
Salted caramel muffins? Is that a Canada item, Michelle? I don’t recall seeing them, but I didn’t study the pastry case. I need to go back and look. I will try that. There are several things I want to buy! I noticed the quilted tumblers and thought they looked great. I didn’t pay attention if ti was a tall or grande. Sometimes a tall ceramic tumbler will look like a grande because of the thickness of the tumbler.
Have to run!
The quilted tumbler is a tall.
The muffin may be a Canadian item actually, I don’t remember what the promo book said, if you have it….try it, it’s to die for. We also finally got the chicken sausage breakfast wrap.
@Brian– yah, I think its worth it, just on the one surprise I sneaked, lol. Happy to be more specific (and I think $10 is the minimum cost, so that’s also an underestimate) if you want me to email you personally 🙂 Enjoy!
I’m in Canada, and we don’t have a salted caramel muffin (at least, not at the 5 stores I frequent), but we have a salted caramel *square*, and a chocolate caramel muffin (no salt).
I wish they would put that fox on a Starbucks card. I love the colors of the coffee packaging this year!
loribonari – That’s the muffin I’m talking about, when we ring it in the register calls it a salted caramel muffin. There’s something sprinkled on the top…it could be sugar, but I thought it was salt.
Chase – Did you see the fox mug?
Hey Michelle– cool, didn’t realize, because the ones I’ve seen had a caramel goopy syrup on top without any salt, but it could have just fallen off. Didn’t realize it was salted– cool!!!
Melody, have you seen Christmas espresso roast this year? I have been to two locations and starbucksstore.com and cannot find it.
Thanks.
@Kit – I’ve seen the Espresso Roast Christmas Blend around – it is in the purple packaging. I’m still drinking some Thanksgiving Blend and haven’t even bought Christmas Blend yet. You’re not finding it at your stores? It looks like it should be fairly easy to find. I’d be curious if your neighborhood store didn’t get any, or was already sold out.
@Melody – I finally found it at Target. The store I have been frequenting said that they will not be getting the espresso roast in. Thank you!
Kit – I’m glad you found it! This has been a lesson for me. I really didn’t know that there were some Starbucks stores that didn’t get in the Espresso Roast Christmas Blend. (I’m assuming your regular store is a company-operated location).
Hey loribonari, if you could email me the surprise(s) I’d really appreciate it!
Glitch3982@hotmail.com