The first Starbucks coffee shop opened in 1972 in downtown Sattle, Washington, in the United States. It was a [?] coffee shop that roasted its own coffee beans. The coffee shop's business did well, and by 1981 there [?] three more Starbucks stores in Seattle.

Things really began to change for the company [?] 1981. That year, Howard Schultz met the three men [?] ran Starbucks. Schultz created an atomosphere for Starbucks coffee shops that was comfortable and casual, and customers everywhere seemed to like it. Between 1987 and 1992, Starbucks opened 150 new stores--and that was only the [?]. As a matter of , by the year 2000, three new Starbucks stores opened somewhere around the world every day!

Today, Starbucks has thousands of stores, including stores in twenty-six [?]. One thing that helps make Starbucks succeed in cities [?] the United Sates is the way Starbucks works with local stores and restaurants. By working together with a store already in the city, Starbucks gains an understanding of customers in the city. This understanding helps Starbucks open stores in the right locations for their customers.