Starbucks, the world’s largest coffeehouse chain, wants you to come back to your refreshed neighborhood store, grab a couch and stay awhile.

On Thursday, Starbucks unveiled one of the first Chicago stores to be “uplifted” under its “Back to Starbucks” restructuring plan, a campaign to improve performance and the in-store experience across the chain.

The stand-alone store at 4155 N. Cicero Ave. in the Old Irving Park neighborhood features leather couches, cushy chairs, throw rugs, drapes, coffee-themed art on the walls and a decidedly cozier feel than many of the 17,000 Starbucks locations across the U.S.

“We’re redesigning our spaces in a way that is warm, it’s cozier, it’s more inviting,” Shanel Williams, regional vice president of operations for Starbucks, said after a ribbon-cutting ceremony at the store Thursday. “Customers want to come and stay longer.”

Seattle-based Starbucks is planning to renovate 1,000 stores in North America this year and has already completed more than 200 coffeehouse uplifts across New York and Southern California. Renovations are beginning to pick up steam in Chicago as well.

The chain has completed 90 stores in the Chicago market on the way to uplifting 200 locations in the city and suburbs by September.

In addition to the Cicero Avenue store, Chicago coffee fans can sample the new vibe in a number of renovated locations, from Willis Tower in the Loop to the Starbucks at Deerfield and Waukegan roads in north suburban Deerfield.

The design changes include more couches and lounge chairs, warmer colors and textures and local Chicago flavor including neighborhood-inspired art and historical photography.

The concept has similar execution throughout the Chicago area, but is customized for each location. For example, the uplifted Willis Tower store features commissioned artwork depicting the adjacent Chicago River.

Opened in 2018, the stand-alone Starbucks on Cicero Avenue provided a great canvas for the refresh, said Stephenie Rychlik, a design director for Starbucks whose team is overseeing the uplift at all 200 Chicago-area stores.

“It had good bones,” Rychlik said Thursday after the ceremony.

New design touches at the Cicero Avenue store include two beige leather sofas with end tables and rugs, goldenrod-colored drapes on the formerly bare windows, new lighting and coffee-themed artwork on the walls.

The casually cluttered seating is more plentiful and features lots of cushions, a change from the rows of hard wooden stools that preceded it, encouraging a coffee klatsch experience rather than gulp-and-run.

Customers can also get a closer look at the espresso bar as baristas artfully whip up everything from a caramel macchiato to a cocoa cappuccino, with unobstructed views and new lighting above the pickup area.

One key operational change is that employees will also take the drinks directly to seated customers as part of what Starbucks is calling its green apron service. If nothing else, the direct handoff might minimize the mangled callouts to customers on mislabeled cups.

“We’ll come bring that drink to you so that you don’t have to get back up,” Williams said. “You’re already seated, you’re comfortable in your chair.”

Chicago has played a key role in the history of Starbucks, beginning with its expansion from a Seattle coffeehouse into a seemingly ubiquitous worldwide chain. In 1987, Starbucks opened its first coffeehouse outside of its Pacific Northwest base in the Loop.

In 2019, it opened the world’s largest Starbucks in Chicago, the five-story, 35,000-square-foot Reserve Roastery on North Michigan Avenue.

Now Chicago will be home to 200 of the redesigned Starbucks — 20% of the nationwide renovations — as part of the “Back to Starbucks” plan. But the city also lost an undisclosed number of ostensibly underperforming stores last fall as part of the same restructuring.

The Back to Starbucks plan, which was announced by CEO Brian Niccol soon after he took the helm of the coffee giant in September 2024, was a mission to improve performance, quality and speed of food and drink delivery, while “elevating the in-store experience” to recapture the mojo of the 55-year-old chain.

Starbucks closed about 750 stores in North America in 2025 as part of the restructuring plan, according to financial filings.

Chicago-area closings included the Starbucks store at Clark Street and Ridge Avenue in the Edgewater neighborhood, the store on Main Street in Evanston and a small location on Park Avenue in north suburban Glencoe, which frothed up its last latte on Sept. 27.

At the end of last year, Starbucks had 16,911 U.S. stores, down from 17,230 six months earlier, with the closures partially offset by new openings.

Down the road, Starbucks is planning to refresh most of its stores across the U.S., following the lead in Chicago, Williams said.

Starbucks began uplifting Chicago-area locations in January, and work on the Cicero Avenue store was finished in February. Despite having 90 of the 200 stores already completed, Starbucks waited until April to do a ribbon-cutting ceremony and formally unveil the new designs in Chicago.

But Starbucks has a few months of soft openings under its belt to see how the uplifted stores are performing in Chicago, and Williams said the early returns are promising.

“More people are coming,” Williams said. “More people are staying all day.”

The 2,500-square-foot Cicero Avenue store features a small parking lot and single drive-thru lane, both of which were busy late Thursday morning. Inside, about a half dozen customers sipped coffee in various nooks and crannies of the store.

Among them was Alex Klump, 30, a drummer from Niles, who grabbed a table, settling down with a coffee and his laptop before heading to a session with his band at nearby Fort Knox Studios.

Despite the unusual grand opening hubbub around him, Klump stayed for more than an hour, enjoying the new vibe at the cozy Cicero Avenue Starbucks.

“It just feels like it’s a little more homey,” Klump said. “Everything felt sleek and black before, and now there’s actual couches and stuff. It feels less corporate.”

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