Strolling on Arbat street (a famous walking street in the center of Moscow) with my friends I was shocked to see the Starbucks coffee shop. These guys have been very quiet and I somehow missed the moment of their opening.

I have actually been waiting for the chain to open, and didn’t quite understand the reason what took them so long to penetrate the booming Russian market. Now that I have browsed for some info, it turns out that they had some legal fights with a trademark squatter who registered the chain’s brand name in Russia. Looks now that the fight was successful for Starbucks, and the guys have now received the green light for stepping in to the new fight – now with the competition.

I called in the restaurant yesterday, just for a moment to have a quick view on the interior. It looks fine. A couple of details, though, might be improved:

• Long tables across the windows are missing. It would be nice to have them there – this is my favourite place to sit and stare out into the street when I have some time to kill
• They serve coffee in the plastic cups, which, I hope, will be changed soon
• I haven’t tried their coffee yet, so I cant judge about the taste. There were no complaints on the net. There were a couple of negative notes, though, about their prices.

Otherwise, the place looks pretty much authentic (at least as far as I can compare with a London Starbucks). The latest data state that Moscow has one coffee house per 3 187 people. Comparing to New York and Paris (one per 365 and one per 126 respectively) there is room to grow. However, there are a number of competitors that have been doing pretty good so far (e.g. Coffee House or Shokoladnitsa) and a new entrant – the Costa Coffee (the joint venture project of Whitbread and Rosinter Restaurants). Another issue is that one should take into account the Russian capital’s behaviour: Paris must have more places to stop in than any other place, and Moscow doesn’t seem to be the favourite place for tourists.

Anyway, let’s wait and see how fast a pace the Starbucks is going to take here in Moscow, and in Russia. I truly hope there will be enough places to stop by and have a cup.

P.S. Starbucks global website doesn’t show any Moscow shops on a map. Strange.

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