Rather than greeting the US chain with disdain, some bar owners think it can give the business a shot in the arm

The Sant’Eustachio bar in the heart of Rome is considered one of the best in the Eternal City. It serves about 5,000 shots of caffè a day – commonly known outside of Italy as an espresso – and keeps its almost intimidating level of hustle and bustle going by automatically putting sugar in patrons’ drinks, unless they explicitly opt out.

“It saves time, or else you have all the people standing there, stirring,” said the owner, Raimondo Ricci. No one would dream of bringing their laptop to Sant’Eustachio and settling down for a few hours, even if there was somewhere to sit inside, which there isn’t. Here, you stand at the bar, drink, and move on.



It’s the anti-Starbucks.



But days after the news broke that the ubiquitous American coffee shop is finally daring to enter the Italian market, Ricci does not react with the sense of disdain one might expect.



A guide to Italian coffee: sugar is optional, Frappuccino does not exist Read more

Sure, Starbucks products with Italian-sounding names like Frappuccino would probably offend the sensibilities of most of his customers – he jokes about the American tourists who enter his shop asking him if he knows what a “caffè latte” is – but he nevertheless thinks it will be a good thing for competitors and customers in Italy to be exposed to a different way of doing business, and a higher price for coffee.

In Rome, a coffee can cost as little as 70 cents (55p). In Milan, where Starbucks will open its first shop next year, the price is a little higher, about €1.10 (85p). Prices at Starbucks shops around the world are much higher.



“It’s not that Starbucks’ prices are strange, it’s that our prices are too low in Italy. There is too much competition. And that results in lower quality and the product is worse,” Ricci said. “You can’t do a quality coffee for prices as they are in Rome. If you give 70 cents to the guy who is washing your windshield at the traffic light, he will look at you badly.”



For Italians, going to a bar for a quick caffè – sometimes even five times a day – is a deeply ingrained ritual. In many, you first pay for your order at the register and then take your receipt to the bar. While Italy is not necessarily a model of efficiency, the bar is a different matter. The staff work rapidly, often juggling multiple orders, making coffees, serving up pastries or sandwiches, squeezing oranges to make fresh juice, and at the same time filling up small dishwashers to clean the saucers and cups they clear off the bar. No one writes your name on a cup and shouts it out 10 minutes later.



Taking the plunger: Starbucks to open first store in Italy Read more

Coffee shop owners who are familiar with Starbucks – and its offering of huge American drinks, free Wi-Fi, comfy seats, and refrigerated sandwiches served out of a package – believe it will be a novel experience but not one that will take off as it has in other countries, much less replace the traditional Italian bar.



“In Milan, it will be a matter of fashion. It will open, people will go, but it won’t be on every street corner like it is in London. You’ll go to Starbucks, have an espresso which is disgusting and pay €3 for it,” said Stefano Castroni, owner of the Castroni bar on Via Nazionale in Rome.



The bar, which has been in the family since 1932, is getting ready for Easter and huge chocolate eggs wrapped in cellophane of every colour are hanging from the ceiling.



“In Italy, there is a bar every four stores. An Italian goes, has one espresso for a euro, that’s it. In America you go in, open your Wi-Fi, you have your lunch, a sandwich, a huge cup of coffee, spend 10 or 11 euros. Here it doesn’t work like that,” he said.

Carlo Alberto Carnevale Maffè, a business professor at the Bocconi School of Management in Milan, said Italians’ typical response might be to pooh-pooh Starbucks, but they are missing the obvious.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest A busy evening at the Sant’Eustachio bar. Photograph: Alamy

“Italians think they have the monopoly on good coffee, which is well deserved, but don’t have it on business. I always say, ‘If you are so smart, why aren’t you rich?’ Starbucks has the right idea,” he said.

In fact, he added, the coffeehouses of Italy in the 17th century were literary places where educated people discussed politics, far more similar to the Starbucks of today than an Italian bar.

“Yeah, espresso is by far better than any of the dark water that they call coffee at Starbucks, but let’s not talk about the product,” Carnevale Maffè said, before expounding on the topic.

Starbucks sales set to break $20bn – a latte for everyone on Earth Read more

“Of course the products of Starbucks have an international standard – with sizes that are very far from the classic Italian taste of coffee, an almost religious tradition, if you will. But there is of course room for everybody and Starbucks has a great diversification of products and foods.”

For now, Starbucks is not revealing too much of what exactly it will offer or how it will adapt to Italian tastes. For example, although Italians are generally fit, it is not because bargoers request low-fat milk and low-fat pastries. Such products are not even on offer. The company said it would be working with local food providers to create “perfect pairings for Italian customers”.

Back at Sant’Eustachio, Ricci points to an espresso machine that sits behind a glass display in the corner, one of the oldest of its kind. An old framed newspaper on the wall captures the day that Henry Kissinger came for a coffee in the 1970s.

“You know Howard Schultz once came a few years ago,” Ricci said, referring to the Starbucks founder and chief executive. “He was checking it all out.”