> And of course Starbucks will never franchise (well, Marriott, but look at how that turned out)
Interesting - I always assumed that the "we proudly brew Starbucks" locations at bookstores/college cafeterias/airports/malls/rest stops/etc. were franchises. They look just like Starbucks except on close inspection: they often don't accept Starbucks cards or run the promotions, for example. These are at places where all of the restaurant frontends are operated by Sodexho or Aramark, and occasionally the restaurants are connected behind the counter (sometimes staff may even be observed moving back and forth as demand warrants). Are those joint ventures?
Its one thing to buy beans from Starbucks and sell them back to consumers. "We brew starbucks coffee" is like saying "we sell Coke."
There are "starbucks cafes" operated by big companies who aren't starbucks: Barnes and Noble is the biggest one, then you have Sudexo in the states (wish Sudexo could do that in my office building!), and of course Marriott in some hotels and airports.
Most of the starbucks in China are JVs, but they've been trying to get out of that for awhile now. I'm not sure if they finally were able to throw off their Chinese partners or not. Other countries I'm not sure, but I think Japan is all owned by Starbucks themselves. They also are playing around with the Seattle's Best Coffee brand for some co-run stores (Sudexo has started doing that at Microsoft in Redmond).
I don't think I would call the co-managed stores joint ventures. It is a very specific term with significant political/legal implications.
Interesting - I always assumed that the "we proudly brew Starbucks" locations at bookstores/college cafeterias/airports/malls/rest stops/etc. were franchises. They look just like Starbucks except on close inspection: they often don't accept Starbucks cards or run the promotions, for example. These are at places where all of the restaurant frontends are operated by Sodexho or Aramark, and occasionally the restaurants are connected behind the counter (sometimes staff may even be observed moving back and forth as demand warrants). Are those joint ventures?