I ran across this interesting article on how Starbucks manages their real estate. Corporate real estate is not my usual thing, but I thought the insights were quite interesting and show how important location is to the Starbucks brand.

Starbucks is a concept driven as much by real estate as it is by coffee and the coffee experience. These days Starbucks opens at least three new locations a day somewhere in the world. It has taken a lot of real estate to open up 9,000+ Starbucks locations and it will take even more real estate to reach their stated goal of 30,000 global locations.

The blog entry quoted above is from a review of Built for Growth by a former EVP of Real Estate with Starbucks. In the book, the author describes how “Starbucks gained market dominance through finding the best real estate locations.”

While not surprising, it’s interesting to hear the different ways that location has become an intergral part of Starbucks’ growth strategy.