Wednesday, June 15, 2011

'No one's going to drink a cup of Pee-quod!' How Starbucks was almost named after the doomed ship in Moby-Dick


It's the largest coffee house in the world, but Starbucks may have had a very different story had one of its founders had his way.
According to Howard Schultz's book Pour Your Heart Into It: How Starbucks Built a Company One Cup at a Time, Mr Bowker suggested the name Pequod to his then-creative partner, Terry Heckler, who responded: 'No one's going to drink a cup of Pee-quod!'After a brainstorming session, Mr Bowker's co-founders, teachers  Jerry Baldwin and Zev Siegl, decided Captain Ahab's first mate Starbuck would be the name of the then-unknown brand.t was not the only inspiration the entrepreneurs found in the unusual name.Writer Gordon Bowke, who co-founded the company in 1971, originally wanted to name the company Peqoud, after the doomed whaleship in Moby-Dick.Luckily, his business partners settled on the name of the ship's first mate instead.It also inspired Starbucks' famed green and white logo, which features a Siren from Greek Mythology.As the story goes, Sirens lured sailors to shipwreck off the coast of an island in the South Pacific, also called Starbuck Island.Starbucks, it seems, proved a wise choice. The company later changed hands and Mr Schultz became the company's sole owner when he bought out the three founders in 1987.The company, however, could have gone by many different names with founders so captivated by the Herman Melville classic.Stubb, Flask, Queequeg, Tashtego, Daggoo, Pip and Fedallah are among the other characters in the story, about Captain Ahab's search for a monstrous sperm whale wandering the seas after that destroyed his boat and bit off his leg.
Starbucks went on to become the largest coffee house company in the world, with 17,009 stores in 50 countries, including over 11,000 in the U.S.



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