Roastery是星巴克的未来？

Angus Maxwell, 27, works in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. He describes himself as an “installation and performance artist” and is a member of the Boom! Theater Company. He grew up in Seattle and wears a beard and wire-rim glasses.

27岁的安格斯·马克斯韦尔(Angus Maxwell)在布鲁克林的威廉斯堡工作。他自称“装置艺术和行为艺术家”，是Boom剧团(Boom! Theater Company)的一员。他在西雅图长大，留着胡子，戴着金属镜架眼镜。

He’s also a barista for what must be among the most discerning coffee clientele in the country, where boutique roasters like Blue Bottle and Toby’s Estate¹ dominate the neighborhood. This week he brewed² me a cup of “small lot” coffee — Nicaragua El Suyatal (“notes of hazelnut and caramel with a malty sweetness”) — while describing the distinctive³ flavor profiles of beans from Tanzania to Hawaii.

他也是咖啡师，为美国最有鉴赏力的咖啡客户服务。在美国，蓝瓶咖啡馆(Blue Bottle)和Toby’s Estate等精品咖啡馆在社区占主导地位。本周，他为我冲了一杯小份量咖啡——尼加拉瓜El Suyatal咖啡（“榛子、焦糖搭配麦芽的甜味”）——同时给我讲述从坦桑尼亚到夏威夷的各种咖啡豆的独特风味。

Mr. Maxwell doesn’t work for another artisanal upstart, but Starbucks. He’s the assistant store manager at the chain’s spacious⁴ year-old location on Williamsburg’s Seventh Street, and has worked for the company for nearly five years.

马克斯韦尔所服务的手工咖啡新贵，正是星巴克(Starbucks)。他是这家咖啡连锁店在威廉斯堡第七街的宽敞老店的副经理，已经为这家公司工作了近五年。

Howard D. Schultz, Starbucks’s chief executive, told me this week that it’s people like Mr. Maxwell who explain the company’s success, which has dazzled investors⁵. In a year in which the S.&P. 500-stock index has been flat, Starbucks shares have surged more than 50 percent, making it one of the market’s best performers. Last month, Starbucks reported record revenue of $4.9 billion and earnings⁶ of just under $1 billion for the fourth quarter of fiscal⁷ 2015, both double-digit percentage gains over the previous year.

本周（11月29日至12月5日），星巴克的首席执行官霍华德·D·舒尔茨(Howard D. Schultz)对我说，这家公司之所以取得令投资者惊叹的成功，靠的正是马克斯韦尔这样的人。今年，标准普尔500( S.&P. 500)的股票指数平平，但是星巴克的股票却猛涨50%多，成为股市上表现最好的股票之一。上个月（11月），星巴克的收入达到历史性新高49亿美元，2015财政年第四季度的收入接近10亿美元，同比上一年都获得两位数的增长。

“Our brand equity⁸ is built on our customers’ experience, and that depends on the quality of our people,” Mr. Schultz said. Starbucks prides itself on its care for “partners,” the noun it prefers to employees. It pays higher wages, offers health insurance even to part-time workers and pays college tuition for thousands of eligible⁹ employees. Starbucks employee turnover¹⁰ is relatively¹¹ low, yielding benefits in efficiency and morale¹².

舒尔茨说：“我们的品牌价值建立在顾客体验上，而那取决于我们员工的素质。”星巴克以对“合作伙伴”的关心为豪，它所说的合作伙伴就是员工。它支付更高的工资，甚至给非全职员工提供健康保险，为成千上万符合条件的员工支付大学学费。星巴克的员工流动率相对较低，这对提高效率和士气都有好处。

Still, the company’s labor practices have come under scrutiny¹³ for its inconsistent and inconvenient¹⁴ work hours. The Starbucks Workers Union mounts periodic protests, and in September some workers demonstrated over scheduling practices.

不过，这家公司因工作时间不连贯、不方便而遭到审查。星巴克工会(Starbucks Workers Union)经常进行抗议，今年9月，有些员工为排班制度而进行游行。

Mr. Schultz has also been criticized for his broader utopian ambitions. Earlier this year, Starbucks was derided¹⁵ for encouraging baristas to write the phrase “Race Together” on customers’ coffee cups to stir a discussion of racial issues. Mr. Schultz makes no apologies for speaking out on political and social issues. “From the beginning, we set out to build a company designed to balance profit with conscience, benevolence¹⁶ and social impact,” he told me.

舒尔茨宏大的乌托邦野心也遭到诟病。今年年初，星巴克鼓励咖啡师在顾客的咖啡杯上写“Race Together”，以激发关于种族问题的讨论，因此遭到嘲笑。舒尔茨在为政治和社会问题发声方面从不道歉。他说：“从一开始，我们就决定创建一个在利润与良知、善行、社会影响力之间保持平衡的公司。”

Starbucks’s strong financial performance seems all the more remarkable¹⁷ considering that the retail¹⁸ sector¹⁹ is struggling, and that the company had seemed to have lost its way when Mr. Schultz rejoined it in 2008. But last year, same-store comparable sales grew 8 percent, not just in growth markets like China and Japan, but in the United States. “They’ve defied everyone’s expectations, especially for a business this mature,” said Sara Senatore, who covers Starbucks as an analyst²⁰ at Sanford C. Bernstein.

考虑到目前整个零售业在艰难挣扎，而且2008年舒尔茨再次加入该公司后似乎迷失了方向，所以这几年星巴克强劲的经济表现显得更加引人注目。去年，同店可比销售额增长了8%，而且不只是在中国和日本等成长型市场，还包括在美国。盛博公司(Sanford C. Bernstein)对星巴克进行分析的萨拉·塞纳托雷(Sara Senatore)说：“他们超乎所有人的预料，尤其对这样一个成熟的公司来说。”

And rather than cede²¹ the high end to competitors like Stumptown, Blue Bottle or Intelligentsia, Starbucks took them on. It unveiled last year the Roastery & Tasting Room, a 15,000-square-foot showplace in Seattle, which Mr. Schultz described as “a magic carpet ride of coffee, theater and romance.” Starbucks is developing the Roastery as a separate premium²² brand, and it is no less than “the future of the company,” Mr. Schultz said.

星巴克没有把高端市场让给树墩城(Stumptown)、蓝瓶或Intelligentsia咖啡馆，而是与它们进行较量。去年，星巴克在西雅图开设了一个占地1.5万平方英尺（约合1393平方米）的Roastery & Tasting Room展厅，舒尔茨形容它是“一张承载咖啡、戏剧和浪漫的魔毯”。舒尔茨说，星巴克想把Roastery发展成独立的优质品牌，称它是“这家公司的未来”。

It’s too soon to know if the rest of the world is ready for what several reviewers described as the Disneyland of coffee, where single cups brewed from rare beans can top $10 and baristas lead groups through “flights” of small-lot coffees, much like a wine tasting. But he said results had exceeded expectations and the company plans to roll out Roasteries in a few major markets, with New York high on its list.

现在还不好判断世界上的其他地方是否愿意接受这个被有些评论者称为咖啡迪士尼乐园的地方。在这里，一杯用珍稀咖啡豆冲泡的咖啡售价可能高达10美元，咖啡师会带领顾客进行类似品酒的小分量咖啡品尝之旅。不过他说，顾客的接受程度已经超过预期，公司计划在几个主要市场扩张Roastery，纽约是首选地之一。

Starbucks locations like Williamsburg feature the Roastery’s “reserve” coffees, and the company is looking to open as many as 1,000 of these reserve cafes over the next few years. My cup of Nicaraguan was $4 for a 12-ounce cup, and Mr. Maxwell hand-brewed it using Starbucks’s trademarked Clover brewing²³ system, featuring “innovative²⁴ vacuum-press technology.” I don’t claim to be a connoisseur²⁵, but it was remarkably²⁶ good. And for $4, it should be.“They have to invest and stay ahead of these trends and remind people they were there first,” said Ms. Senatore, who pointed²⁷ out that Starbucks’s size gives it an edge in securing the best beans. “They can do what the smaller competitors can’t.”

威廉斯堡星巴克咖啡店的特色之一是Roastery的“珍藏”咖啡，这家公司计划在未来几年里开设1000家这样的珍藏咖啡店。我的那杯售价4美元的12盎司尼加拉瓜咖啡是马克斯韦尔用星巴克标志性的Clover冲泡系统亲手冲泡的。这个系统的特色是“创新性真空压缩技术”。我不敢自称咖啡鉴赏家，但是这杯咖啡真的很棒，而且真的值4美元。塞纳托雷说：“他们必须投资，站在时尚前沿，提醒人们他们也是领头人。”她还指出，星巴克的规模让它能得到最好的咖啡豆，“他们能做到小公司无法做到的事情”。

The luxury coffee market has become crowded, as a stroll through the Brooklyn neighborhood makes clear. But Mr. Schultz said Starbucks could happily coexist with other high-end roasters. “Williamsburg is emblematic²⁸ of some of our most successful locations,” Mr. Schultz said. “Typically there’s some mild protest that people don’t want us to come in until after we get there and exceed expectations. The higher the quality coffee in any area, the better for us, because people get educated. New York City is competitive. London is competitive. Those are some of our best markets.”

奢侈咖啡市场已经十分拥挤，你在布鲁克林转一圈就知道了。不过，舒尔茨说，星巴克能够与其他高端品牌愉快共存。他说：“威廉斯堡是我们最成功的分店之一。一般来讲，我们会遭遇一些温和的抗议，起初人们不想让我们进驻，而我们进驻后，往往超越了他们的期待。一个地区的咖啡水准越高，对我们越有利，因为那里的顾客已经接受了一些教育。纽约市竞争激烈。伦敦竞争激烈。它们却是我们最好的市场。”

Starbucks has also been a pioneer in mobile payments, something that many retailers²⁹ are just beginning to adopt. With 16 million users and a generous rewards-loyalty program, the company’s phone app — which was unveiled just two years ago in some test markets — accounts for about 21 percent of all transactions at company-owned stores in the United States.

星巴克也是手机支付的先驱，很多零售商现在才刚开始采用。两年前，这家公司的手机应用程序开始在某些市场试用，现在有1600万用户。凭借丰厚的忠诚回馈活动，手机支付额已经达到美国所有星巴克分店交易额的21%。

Starbucks has begun enabling its app users to order and pay in advance, and will also start offering delivery service. “For a company where people are put off by long lines or don’t have time to wait, this is a game changer,” said Ms. Senatore.

星巴克开始允许它的应用程序用户提前点餐和支付，并将开始提供外卖服务。塞纳托雷说：“星巴克的顾客不喜欢排长队，也没时间等待，所以这是一项重要革新。”

(McDonald’s, by comparison, introduced its mobile app just this summer. And notably³⁰, Starbucks’s stock market value is fast approaching that of McDonald’s — the burger giant’s market capitalization is $105 billion; Starbucks’s is $91 billion.)

（做个比较，今年夏天，麦当劳推出自己的手机应用程序。值得注意的是，星巴克的股票市值正快速接近麦当劳。这个汉堡巨头的市值为1050亿美元，星巴克是910亿美元。）

Wall Street analysts³¹ say that the fruits of both the Roastery concept and the enhanced mobile payments strategy could soon start to show up in the company’s financial results.

华尔街分析家称，Roastery的概念和改进后的手机支付战略将很快开始在该公司的财务业绩上体现出来。

“You can come up with a pretty compelling argument for continued growth through 2020,” said Karen Holthouse, an analyst who covers fast food and casual restaurants for Goldman Sachs. “I don’t think there’s another company this size where you can say they’re going to grow earnings by 15 percent a year and be this confident about it.”

高盛集团(Goldman Sachs)的快餐和休闲餐馆分析师卡伦·霍尔特霍斯(Karen Holthouse)说：“有充分的理由相信，这样的增长会持续至2020年。我可不认为还有此等规模的公司，令人信心十足地说能保持每年15%的增长。”