Starbucks hires Chipotle veteran to lead coffeehouse design overhaul

Starbucks has put a Chipotle veteran in charge of the next version of the coffeehouse, a signal that the company’s turnaround is now as much about floor plans and throughput as it is about the menu. Stephen Piacentini, who helped Chipotle scale beyond 4,000 restaurants and worked on the chain’s Chipotlane drive-thru model, has joined Starbucks as executive vice president and chief coffeehouse design and development officer.

The move fits neatly with Brian Niccol’s broader reset at Starbucks, where the company has been trying to rebuild the in-store experience and restore its role as the community coffeehouse. Starbucks’ leadership page still lists Meredith Sandland as executive vice president and chief development officer, a reminder that development responsibilities have been shifting at the top even as the company pushes into a new phase of store strategy.

Piacentini’s background is built for this kind of job. Chipotle said when it hired him effective June 19, 2023, that he brought more than 20 years of development experience and would help guide the company toward a long-term target of 7,000 North American restaurants. Before Chipotle, he held development roles at Wendy’s, Jimmy John’s and Taco Bell, giving him a deep resume in site selection, construction and unit growth across high-volume restaurant systems.

For Starbucks, that kind of expertise matters because the company is not simply refreshing décor. It is rethinking what a Starbucks store should do. The chain has said its redesigned coffeehouses will bring back generous soft seating and design cues tied to the local community, part of a push to reclaim the heart of the coffeehouse experience. In September 2025, Starbucks said it planned to redesign more than 1,000 coffeehouses by the end of 2026, and at its 2026 Investor Day the company said it was accelerating new coffeehouse builds and renovations.

The store-format shift is already visible. Starbucks has been phasing out mobile-order and pickup-only locations while testing smaller prototypes, including an urban format with about 10 seats in New York City and another standalone design with 32 seats, a drive-thru and roughly 30% lower build cost. That points to a portfolio that is becoming more flexible, more operationally efficient and better suited to different traffic patterns, from dense city blocks to suburban drive-thru lanes.

Reuters reported that Starbucks is trying to return to pre-pandemic profit margins and that the turnaround is ahead of schedule. Piacentini’s arrival suggests the company wants restaurant-style discipline behind that ambition, with a development leader who understands how site strategy, speed and layout can shape what customers feel in the line, at the espresso bar and in the seat by the window.