Starbucks’ comeback is gaining momentum, with the company posting its first comparable transaction growth in the US in eight quarters on Wednesday — but reversing slumping sales was just phase one.
Now, leadership says it’s time to begin a new chapter.
Ahead of Thursday’s Investor Day presentation, in which the company outlined its strategic plan through fiscal 2028, chief operations officer Mike Grams spoke with Business Insider about the next phase of Starbucks’ revitalization effort.
“We’re in this stage of ‘Back to Starbucks’ and moving toward creating the best of Starbucks,” Grams said. “We’ve got a really vibrant culture that’s fueling the ‘Back to Starbucks’ journey, and you marry that with the existing way people feel about Starbucks, both with customers and partners, and it’s really exciting.”
Analysts say Starbucks still has something to prove. Two analysts told Business Insider ahead of investor day that they’re watching for clearer, multi-year financial targets, more detail on how cost savings will materialize, and tangible examples of how Starbucks’ investments — from store remodels to staffing changes — will ultimately rebuild margins.
Without that clarity, they said, enthusiasm about the company’s cultural reset may not be enough to sustain investor confidence.
Here’s what Grams said to expect in 2026 and beyond.
Coffeehouse remodels
Starbucks has completed about 200 of its planned coffeehouse redesigns aimed at encouraging customers to linger, as CEO Brian Niccol said during Wednesday’s earnings call.
Investor day offered the first widespread public look at the renovations, featuring digital menu boards, warmer decor, and cushy seating.
Grams told Business Insider that the remodels are a “momentum-building move.”
During Thursday’s event, he said the remodels cost about $150,000 and are completed “mostly” overnight, with the company on track to complete more than 1,000 store remodels by the end of its fiscal year in September.
Menu innovation
Starbucks menus are also getting a refresh. The company revealed its new spring menu — featuring new espresso, matcha, and chai beverages, as well as bakery items.
“Our pace of innovation is quickening,” Grams said. “It used to be four seasons a year, and now we’re in a faster cycle.”
Operationally, that can be challenging, since each new drink requires baristas to master a separate recipe. Grams said the goal is to work closely with in-store staff to streamline the process and ensure new menu items don’t complicate their workflow.
During Wednesday’s earnings call, Niccol also said Starbucks would continue to expand its wellness-focused menu, doubling down on protein drinks and better-for-you snacks, especially in the afternoon, to encourage repeat visits.
Streamlined tech and equipment
Baristas will receive new tools to help bring the strategy to life.
Green Dot Assist, Starbucks’ AI-driven virtual assistant, is getting enhancements, Grams said, as it rolls out to all cafés. Accessible to staff via an in-store tablet, the device surfaces recipes and other information, so baristas don’t have to fumble with laminated recipe books like they used to.
“If you look at the future of AI inside our coffeehouses, it is going to be about how do we enable baristas, and our leadership teams, to be able to make decisions faster?” Grams told Business Insider.
On the horizon, Grams said, is the goal of designing and launching an AI-generated scheduling system that balances demand forecasts with local weather information and staff availability.
Later this year, Starbucks also plans to modernize its point-of-sale system and introduce a new espresso shot puller for cold beverages, the Mastrena Presta. Starting in 2027, it’ll roll out its newest espresso machine, the Mastrena 3, which can cut the time it takes to pull a quad shot of espresso in half.
Starbucks serves over a billion espresso shots a year, and, with the continued goal of serving customers in four minutes or less, the new machine should help make that metric — which Niccol said Wednesday is still lagging — more achievable.
Staffing support
Another big “aha” moment, Grams said, has been the need to create a clearer staffing structure within Starbucks stores, establishing concrete pathways for staff to grow their careers — thereby continuing to reduce turnover.
Earlier this month, Starbucks announced a new coffee house coach role, which renames and expands the assistant store manager position as part of Starbucks’ commitment to hire 90% of retail leaders internally. Grams said Thursday that the coach role is intended to keep staff at the same store for three years.
Last quarter, Grams said the company promoted over 7,000 partners to management roles, including barista trainers, shift supervisors, and coffeehouse leaders.
Revamped measures of success
Grams said when he started with Starbucks a year ago, corporate was tracking close to 40 metrics in coffeehouses. He’s pared that down.
Starbucks is prioritizing:
- The customer experience: “Meaning, is the customer happy? Did they get what they wanted?”
- Peak times: “Are we able to move customers through our four channels in every coffeehouse and within a reasonable time, with a moment of connection, and deliver the experience?”
- Partner scheduling: “Hire those who can fit within the needs of the business, but also make sure we’re committed to getting them the hours that they signed up for and the shifts that they look for.”
- Inventory: Starbucks aims to solve stocking issues by giving coffee house leaders “the power to be able to order what they need when they need it,” Grams said.
- Health and safety: “Are we clean? Are we are we doing all the right things to prevent anything bad from happening inside Starbucks?”
Grams said Starbucks isn’t giving coffeehouse leaders top-down algorithms to drive these metrics, giving those leaders more control.
Each of the core metrics generates a “shot score” of one through five, with five being the best and highest. Grams said the five-shot coffeehouses in the US have nearly three times the comparable sales compared to the rest of its stores, “so it’s a proof point to us that we’ve got the right metrics.”
New rewards program
Starbucks is updating its customer loyalty program, with the return of its tiered system, a longer window for members to redeem their free birthday treat, and a new reward tier offering $2 off any purchase for redeeming 60 points (called stars).
New rewards aren’t just coming for customers. While some bonuses are available for store managers based on sales and customer experience scores, Grams said the company plans to evolve its staff recognition programs so employees at top-ranking coffeehouses will have “the opportunity to do something special,” though he didn’t share additional details.
At the end of the day, Grams said, the company’s next phase comes down to focus and execution.
“What I’ve learned is we don’t need to change who we are,” Grams told Business Insider. “We just need to be exceptionally good at what we already are.”
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