Many people who are customers of Starbucks do not make sense of the names of the sizes of the drinks. In other restaurants, cafeterias and even in movie theaters, one finds the options “small”, “medium”, “large” and “jumbo”, and that makes sense. But at Starbucks the options are “tall”, “big” and “venti”.
This is not an accident and it is not a publicity stunt to trick people into ordering a larger drink size. It has to do with the history of the brand.
The story behind the menu
Starbucks was founded in 1971 by three men: Jerry Baldwin, Gordon Bowker, and Zev Siegl. Their first branch was opened in the famous Pike Place Market in that city.
The business prospered and by the 1980s they had opened four branches in that same city. Siegl decided to leave the business and left it to Baldwin.
In the 1980s, a man named Howard Shcultz, who worked as a sales representative for a company called Hammarplast, which made kitchen equipment and household items, discovered Starbucks when he noticed how long orders they placed in this business. .
He loved the business so much that he decided to quit his job at Hammarplast and join Starbucks as head of marketing in 1982.
In 1983 he went on vacation to Milan, Italy, and there he fell in love with the experience of cafes and coffee shops that existed in that city.
Upon returning to the United States, he wanted to implement a similar experience, but the owners refused because they wanted to keep the business as it was at that time. However, Schutlz remained charmed by Milan’s espressos and cappuccinos.
In 1985 he resigned from Starbucks, determined to open his own coffee business, Il Giornale, with an experience that would recreate what he experienced in Milan.
The menu was in Italian, and the names of the drink sizes were “short” (small) “tall” (alto) and “grande”, which in this case was an Italian word.
“Little” was an eight-ounce drink; “Tall” was 12 ounces; and “Large” was 16 ounces.
Il Giornale was a success. By 1987, Baldwin and Bowker decided to sell Starbucks. In this way, Schutlz kept the name of that brand and the branches that they already had open. After that, his business grew much bigger and faster.
Over the years, Starbucks customers asked for larger-sized coffees, so Schutlz decided to introduce the “Venti” size, which means “twenty” in Italian and refers to the 20-ounce beverage.
Schultz didn’t like that the menu was cluttered with four different sizes. It has opted to remove the “small” size from the menu, although it is still only available with certain drinks.
Removing that size caused “tall” to become, in the public eye, the smallest alternative on the menu.
In 2011 the company introduced a new size: “thirty”. It means “thirty” in Italian and refers to the 31-ounce drink, but it’s only available with certain cafes and in some countries.
That’s why Starbucks coffees are called that.
