Milan inspired Howard Schultz after his 1983 Starbucks visit.
Howard Schultz visited Milan in 1983 and was impressed by the city’s espresso bars and their role in everyday social life. He saw cafés functioning as gathering places, not merely locations where customers bought coffee to take away.
That experience influenced Schultz’s vision for Starbucks. After returning to the United States, he pursued the idea of building a coffeehouse culture centered on espresso beverages and customer interaction. The concept later became central to Starbucks’ café model and its description of stores as community spaces.
The trip happened before Schultz acquired Starbucks in 1987. Milan was the city whose café culture inspired him; it was not the city where Starbucks was founded, and it was not the location of the company’s first European store.