Starbucks Reserve Roastery, Chicago

by John Unwin

Huge multi-floor space — five floors, the fifth open depending on the weather. It serves up a range of ‘experiences’. Centred on espresso but catering for everyone: semi-automated pour-over bays and novel ways to brew — vacuum siphons. Each floor has its own offerings — coffee, cocktails, food, merch.

I’d assumed the site was newer, but it’s been open since 2019 — part of Howard Schultz’s Reserve Roastery push, though by then Kevin Johnson had taken over as CEO.

The floors wrap around a circular atrium threaded with escalators. A curved escalator in the foreground gives the feeling of being pulled upward, as if by a carousel, and from it you get a sweeping view of the dimly lit space — metal pillars and sharply angled ceiling lines lending an industrial edge.

Some of the brewing looks straight out of a chemistry lab: a Hario siphon coffee maker, its two glass chambers rising over a dark background. The black-and-white rendering only adds to the clinical feel.

At the very top, the tubular installation — ‘the cask’ — reads like a church organ open to the sky, its perforated metal cylinders climbing toward a circular glass ceiling and the blue beyond.

As you ascend, there’s more space to sit, read, relax — the space feels airy, lit by tall windows and warmed by a perforated copper wall and wooden furniture. The colour scheme is needed to lend that warmth.

Looking down, it has the feel of a missile silo — the tubular structures standing in a spiral, waiting. Modern steampunk, at least. Those tubes aren’t just for show: the ‘cask’ actually delivers coffee beans to the different floors.

While there I sampled a Colombia Santander pour-over — good, with plenty of lighter coffee notes. For me, it might have been better with a higher coffee-to-water ratio — or maybe a slightly finer grind.