Starbucks opening mobile-only location in NYC

Starbucks Coffee Company is opening the first Starbucks Pickup store Tuesday in New York City's Penn Plaza, designed for customers on-the-go, according to a company press release. Customers who visit the location will place and pay for their order using Mobile Order & Pay on the Starbucks mobile app. They'll select "Starbucks Pickup – Penn Plaza" as their desired location and build their order using the full Starbucks menu. After arriving at Penn Plaza, customers can track the progress of their orders on a digital status boards and pick up their beverages and food items directly from a barista.

"Our customers who are on-the-go have told us that connection and convenience are important to them," Katie Young, vice president of Urban Markets for Starbucks, said in the release. "By designing a store specifically for the mobile order occasion, we can deliver both for these customers using the store's design, location and the expertise of our baristas."

In designing the Starbucks Pickup location, the company began with a prototype in the Tryer Center, a center for innovation at the Starbucks Support Center in Seattle. At Tryer, teams focused on operations, digital innovation and design worked with store partners (baristas) to create an experience that not only met customer needs but gave store partners the tools they needed to deliver the best customer experience, Young said. An early prototype produced a high volume of customer orders but received low marks from baristas due to constrained space and inability to connect with customers. With that feedback, the team immediately started over and landed a store that met both the customer and the partner's needs.

Starbucks serves more than 31,000 communities around the world.