Inside the world's largest Starbucks, opening Friday in Chicago
CHICAGO - A lot of flagship stores boost their brand and pay scant attention to the character of their cities. But the five-story Starbucks coffee palace that opens Friday in the former Crate & Barrel store on North Michigan Avenue feels at home in Chicago.
It's not just that this emporium, which houses an array of coffee bars as well as a bakery and equipment that will roast about 200,000 pounds of coffee beans a year, is the world's largest Starbucks.
Instead, the 35,000-square-foot facility can be deemed an architectural success for more subtle reasons: It's visually theatrical, crisply designed and carefully tailored to its host city even though it springs from a well-worn
