Second Clinton Starbucks now open inside Food City
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Clinton Food City Manager Sam Turner, holding scissors, cuts the ribbon Monday morning offiicially opening the Starbucks coffee kiosk inside the store on South Charles G. Seivers Boulevard. Assisting him is Starbucks manager Mike Goad. They are flanked by Anderson County Mayor Terry Frank and Clinton Mayor Scott Burton. - G Chambers Williams III
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Food City Starbucks manager Mike Goad serves a customer on Monday morning shortly after the new coffee shop kiosk opened at the Clinton store. See story, page 5B. - G Chambers Williams III
Clinton’s Food City supermarket opened its in-store Starbucks coffee shop on Monday, marking the second location for the Seattle-based coffee chain to open in the city within the past year.
KVAT Food Stores, the Food City corporate parent, last June 21 obtained a building permit from the city for the $110,000 “commercial interior” project to put the Starbucks inside the supermarket, at 507 S. Charles G. Seivers Blvd.
The coffee kiosk is part of a larger plan to renovate and expand the Clinton Food City, store manager Sam Turner said at the time.
On Monday morning, Food City CEO Steve Smith was on hand for the ribbon-cutting ceremony, and said the Clinton location marks the 49th in-store Starbucks for the grocery chain.
“We opened the first one in 2017 in Athens (Tennessee),” Smith said.
“We started doing this because we found that a lot of our communities didn’t have a Starbucks, but wanted one. It has been a good venture for us.”
The Clinton Food City’s Starbucks created 15 new jobs in the store, and all of the workers are considered Food City employees, he said.
Starbucks did send an experienced representative to Clinton to train the local staff, but no corporate employees will be stationed here.
The Food City Starbucks will be open seven days a week from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m., Turner said. It offers the same coffee drinks found at other Starbucks locations – either standalone or inside other stores.
Also underway at Clinton’s Food City is remodeling that includes a sushi bar; new cases and coolers, stove, and ovens in the bakery/deli; a new décor package; and general painting and updating of the rest of the interior.
Food City also is expanding its health and beauty-care products into the area formerly occupied by the in-store bank branch, which recently closed, Turner said.
“Where the bank was, we’re taking that space, and all health and beauty care will be relocated there,” he said.
“That will give us more grocery retail space for better variety on grocery items. We’re doing improvements to better serve our customers with more variety.”
KVAT Food stores got a building permit in June 2022 for demolition of the bank’s interior space.
The addition of the Starbucks and the expansion of floor space will lead to a total of 40 new jobs at the store, Turner said earlier.
Starbucks is in a kiosk near where register No. 7 was, on the deli side of the building.
Clinton Mayor Scott Burton, Anderson County Mayor Terry Frank, and officials of the Anderson County Chamber of Commerce were on hand for Monday morning’s ribbon cutting.