Michigan’s First Fancy Starbucks Reserve Bar Opens in Birmingham This Month

Starbucks will drop the first Michigan outpost of its fancy, millennial-baiting cafe spinoff Starbucks Reserve Bar in Birmingham on September 29. The location, which was announced last fall, is taking over the former Cosi space at 101 N. Old Woodward.

The Seattle-based coffee company opened its first upscale Starbucks Reserve Roastery and Tasting Room in 2014 with the aim of appealing to third wave coffee drinkers. Starbucks Reserve Coffee Bars offer a smaller scale version of the experience at the Roastery such as pour-overs, nitro cold brew taps, and small-batch coffees alongside the standard menu of Frappuccinos, espresso drinks, and white chocolate mochas.

In 2016, the company confirmed plans to open Reserve bars in up to 1,000 brand new and existing Starbucks cafes. Since then, cafes have appeared everywhere from Washington D.C. to Chicago.

A representative for the Starbucks confirms to Eater in an email that the high-end 3,400-square-foot Birmingham Reserve bar will be the “the first (and only) of its kind in Michigan.”

In addition to the Reserve bar in Birmingham, Starbucks is also poised to open another Detroit location inside downtown’s Westin Book Cadillac Detroit hotel “in early October.” The shop is slated to replace the WBC Coffee shop on the ground floor of the hotel and will feature new floor to ceiling glass windows facing the street-level lobby and an outdoor patio. Despite a report by Crain’s, the shop will not be a Reserve bar but a traditional Starbucks cafe. However, a representative for Starbucks confirms that the location will offer a nitro cold brew on tap.

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