By Florence Rankin



TIFTON – Tifton will join the list of cities with a Starbucks coffee shop on Thursday as the newest Starbucks opens at I-75 and U.S. Highway 82 West.

The business, located in the former parking lot at Holiday Inn, features a soothing khaki and gray color scheme topped with big soft armchairs and a rustic pine ceiling. Besides every variety of coffee known to man, the shop will offer pastries, scones and biscotti in the morning and cheesecake, brownies and a special gingerbread in the afternoons. Holiday merchandise including mugs, tumblers, and bags of coffee lines one wall.

Manager Megan Brusseau said Tifton’s demographics led the company to open a store here. She expects to see customers from in town as well as off the interstate.

“I think it will be a good mix,” she said. “The people here in town are so excited. We’ve really had a good response. Everybody’s been very welcoming. It’s been great.”

As the staff sat at a table in the shop Monday listening to the fine points of how to handle registers and make deposits, a would-be customer came in. Russeau said people had been coming up to the drive-through all day hoping to buy coffee or a snack.

Hours for the new business will be from 6 a.m. to 11 p.m. Monday through Thursday, from 6 a.m. to midnight on Fridays and Saturdays and from 7 a.m. to 11 p.m. on Sundays.

Starbucks opened its first store in 1971 in Seattle, Wash., and was up to 7,225 stores in the U.S. and abroad as of October. The company was named one of Fortune’s 100 Best Places to Work and also was selected as one of Business Ethic’s 100 Best Corporate Citizens for four years running.



To contact city editor Florence Rankin, call 382-4321, ext. 209.