Founders - Jerry Baldwin, Zev Siegl, Gordon Bowker

First location - Seattle, WA

The first Starbucks was opened in Seattle, Washington, on March 31, 1971, by three partners who met while they were students at the University of San Francisco: English teacher Jerry Baldwin, history teacher Zev Siegl, and writer Gordon Bowker were inspired to sell high-quality coffee beans and equipment by coffee roasting entrepreneur Alfred Peet after he taught them his style of roasting beans. Bowker recalls that Terry Heckler, with whom Bowker owned an advertising agency, thought words beginning with "st" were powerful. The founders brainstormed a list of words beginning with "st", and eventually landed on "Starbo", a mining town in the Cascade Range. From there, the group remembered "Starbuck," the name of the chief mate in the book Moby-Dick. Bowker said, "Moby-Dick didn't have anything to do with Starbucks directly; it was only coincidental that the sound seemed to make sense."

The first Starbucks store was located in Seattle at 2000 Western Avenue from 1971–1976. This cafe was later moved to 1912 Pike Place. During this time, the company only sold roasted whole coffee beans and did not yet brew coffee to sell. During their first year of operation, they purchased green coffee beans from Peet's, then began buying directly from growers.