Starbucks: new look includes beer, wine

For those of us who enjoy reading in the comfy chairs at Starbucks, news about the company's new look -- which includes beer and wine -- may come as a shock.

As this USA Today article notes, Starbucks is experimenting with a life beyond coffee, as a way to counter competition and to generate more evening business. A new store model, being tested in Seattle, "will serve regional wine and beer. It offers an expansive plate of locally made cheeses — served on china. The barista bar is rebuilt to seat customers up close to the coffee. Most conspicuously, the place looks less like a Starbucks and more like a cafe that's been part of the neighborhood for years — yet that's "green" in design and decor."

State and local laws that limit the sale of beer and wine could make such an expansion more problematic in Maryland. But I'd like to see the new-look cafes here. For non-coffee drinkers like me, they would be more alluring -- even if plans to offer ice cream have been scrapped. That would have been even better -- two scoops of Java Chip, please.