Starbucks is testing a smaller cafe design with a folded coffee bar, plush seats and a bakery case. Six are open, including San Antonio and Manhattan, and the company wants thousands more stores.
Starbucks has figured out how to fit the comfy chairs into a smaller box.
The chain opened a new cafe prototype in San Antonio last month that has everything a regular Starbucks has: plush seating, a glass bakery case and a full espresso bar. It’s just a fraction of the size. Six of them are open so far, including one in Manhattan, CNN reported Oct. 6.
“These particular new formats are really stretching us,” said Dawn Clark, Starbucks’ senior vice president of global concepts and design. She says they still hold everything people expect from the coffeehouse.
What is the new small Starbucks cafe?
It’s a regular Starbucks, squeezed. The big change is behind the counter.
Starbucks redesigned the counter into what it calls a “folded bar,” so it fits into narrow spaces instead of stretching across the whole cafe. That leaves room for seats, which is the part Starbucks cares about most right now.
The company wouldn’t say how many square feet the new design takes up.
Why is Starbucks building smaller stores?
Rent, mostly.
A smaller footprint lets Starbucks move into places where real estate costs a fortune, like big-city blocks.
It’s also cheaper to build. At an investor presentation in January, Starbucks said its smaller-format stores cost about 20 percent less to build and still have comfortable seating, drive-thru service, and room for mobile order pickup.
And Starbucks wants a lot of new stores. In January, it laid out plans for up to 175 new U.S. shops in 2026, around 400 in 2028 and at least 5,000 new U.S. cafes over the long haul.
This comes after they suddenly closed a bunch of stores.
Is this like the pickup-only Starbucks stores?
It’s the opposite. Starbucks’ pickup-only stores were small too, but they had no seats and pushed people to order on the app.
CEO Brian Niccol shut them down in July 2025, calling them “overly transactional.”
Clark says that experiment shaped this one. About 30 percent of Starbucks customers order on mobile, according to the company, so the new cafes don’t force anyone into one lane.
People want to “choose different ways of interacting with us,” Clark said. At the small cafes, you can order at the counter, through the app, for delivery or even at a drive-thru.
What happened to the seats at Starbucks?
They got pulled out, then put back.
Before Niccol arrived in 2024, Starbucks removed 30,000 comfortable seats, swapped in hard wooden stools, and blocked electrical outlets so its cafes worked better for grab-and-go app orders.
Sales slid. Higher prices, long waits for pickup orders, and meh food didn’t help either.
So in 2025, as part of a $1 billion restructuring, Starbucks started bringing back cozy seating, more outlets and free refills. About 1,000 North American stores have been redesigned so far, and Starbucks plans to speed that up.
In January, the company also said it planned to add 25,000 seats to U.S. cafes by the end of its 2026 fiscal year. That’s most of the 30,000 it took away.
Is Starbucks closing stores or opening them?
Both. Starbucks has closed hundreds of North American locations over the past two years, CNN reported.
But U.S. same-store sales turned positive in Starbucks’ most recent quarter, and the store pipeline is pointed up. CNN reports the smaller prototype could fit into those growth plans.
Clark says the company is using feedback from customers and employees at the 1,000 remodeled stores to shape the smaller design. She called the back-and-forth “very symbiotic.”
When is the Starbucks holiday menu?
The popular holiday menu lands Thursday, Nov. 5.
That’s when the new Tiramisu Velvet Latte shows up, along with returning drinks like Peppermint Mocha and Gingerbread Chai. A new Bearista Cake Pop is on the menu too, plus a Holiday Bearista merch collection.
The original Bearista Glass Cold Cup is coming back later in the season. Starbucks hasn’t said when, which might be the smart move after last year’s sellout.
No word yet on whether a glass bear fits behind a folded bar.
Article compiled with the help of the Pirates & Princesses newsroom.
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Hat Tips:
CNN, Jordan Valinsky (Oct. 6, 2026), the exclusive on the small cafe prototype, the folded bar, the six open locations, Dawn Clark’s quotes and the seat and remodel history
Associated Press, Dee-Ann Durbin (Jan. 29, 2026), Starbucks’ investor presentation: the 20 percent cheaper small format, the new-store targets and the 25,000-seat plan
Starbucks (Oct. 5, 2026), the holiday menu and merchandise announcements
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