STARBUCKSThe year 1971. At the time, most coffee consumed in the United States was finely ground coffee sold in vacuum-packed cans. The coffee was definitely not gourmet and sales began to decline. Three friends, Zev Siegl, Gordon Bowker and Gerald Baldwin, arrived with the urge to start a new business. But what business would they start? One day, a light bulb finally went off in their heads when they decided their new business would be in gourmet coffee. The idea first took root when Sigel, Bowker and Baldwin were traveling together in Europe. The coffee served in Europe was extremely different from what Americans were used to. The European coffee was rich and dark. After returning home, Baldwin tasted Alfred Peet's good coffee. Alfred Peet was a Dutch roaster who, after tasting American coffee, decided to open a shop to offer better tasting coffee. After Baldwin tasted Peet's coffee, he and his friends decided that a gourmet coffee shop would be the way to go. Alfred Peet even stayed to help the boys roast some coffee beans and taught them how to roast coffee the European way. Eventually Starbucks was born. Named after the first mate from Herman Melville's Moby Dick, the Starbucks name also pays homage to Seattle's seafaring tradition. The first store opened in Seattle's Pike Place Market. The business began to grow. Starbucks had started purchasing many specialty drip coffee machines from the Swedish kitchen equipment company Perstorp. In 1982, a young Perstorp marketing director named Howard Schultz decided to stop in Seattle and see what was happening. Shortly thereafter, Shcultz stayed on and became a partner. Shcultz then took a trip to Milan. While at a coffee shop in Milan, Shcultz was inspired and had a vision of what Starbucks would become. His vision was for a place where the experience didn't just involve great coffee, but a staff that knew their customers and their orders. The staff would not only know the customer's name, but they would also know the customer's order and start working on it as soon as the customer walks through the door. Shcultz tried to share this idea with his other partners. Neither Bowker nor Baldwin were interested in Shcultz's idea of ​​the complete experience..