Tennessee has scored another major restaurant chain based on the West Coast.
Starbucks and Tennessee state officials, including Gov. Bill Lee, on Tuesday said that the coffee shop giant plans to open a corporate office in Nashville later this year.
Seattle will remain Starbucks’ corporate headquarters but the company will shift its supply chain teams to the new facility.
In the process, Starbucks will join a parade of restaurant chains opening offices or moving headquarters to the Southeastern U.S.
The burger chain In-N-Out last year said that it would move its headquarters there—the chain recently opened its fourth unit in Tenneessee with more under construction—while Hardee’s and Carl’s Jr. owner CKE Restaurants previously moved to the state.
Some other chains, such as Papa Johns and Shake Shack, have opened corporate offices in Atlanta, just to the south.
“Companies across the nation recognize that Tennessee’s strong values and fiscally-conservative approach are good for business, and we are proud to welcome another Fortune 500 company like Starbucks to our state,” Lee said in a statement.
For many chains, the attractiveness of the Southeast is based on several factors, including business climate and local taxes. But population growth is another. Many of the country’s fastest-growing states are in the Southeast, notably the Carolinas and Georgia.
In Starbucks' case, the company sees an opportunity to solidify its presence in a market where it wants to open more shops. The Southeast is on the opposite side of the country from the chain’s headquarters.
“Starbucks has great ambitions to grow even further across North America,” Chief Operating Officer Mike Grams said in a statement. “With these growth plans, we see Nashville, Tennessee as an ideal location to open an office and establish a more strategic presence in the Southeast region of the U.S.”
Grams also cited a “deep, talented and growing workforce” for the decision.
But there was some recruitment involved, too. The announcement noted that the Tennessee Valley Authority, Nashville Chamber of Commerce and “several other partners” were integral to the decision.
Starbucks believes it can open another 5,000 locations in the U.S. and Nashville will be closer to many of the markets that the company is targeting. “There’s tons of opportunity,” Grams said in a recent episode of the A Deeper Dive podcast. “If you look at the coast, you look at the Midwest, but we see tremendous opportunity in the South Central, Florida, Upper Northeast.”
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