Starbucks opened its first coffee shop outside North America in Tokyo in 1996.
The Tokyo store marked Starbucks’ international expansion and introduced the company’s coffeehouse format to Japan. It opened in the Ginza district, a major commercial area of the city.
Starbucks had been founded in Seattle in 1971 and initially focused on selling coffee beans and equipment. Under Howard Schultz, the company developed a broader café model inspired partly by Italian coffee bars.
The Tokyo opening is sometimes confused with Starbucks’ first international store in general because Japan was its first market outside North America. The company later expanded rapidly through company-operated stores and licensed locations around the world.