Starbucks.
The first Starbucks opened in Seattle, Washington, on March 30, 1971 by three partners that met while students at the University of San Francisco. The three were inspired to sell high-quality coffee beans and equipment by coffee roasting entrepreneur Alfred Peet after he taught them his style of roasting beans.
Originally the company was to be called Pequod, after a whaling ship from Moby-Dick, but this name was rejected by some of the co-founders. The company was instead named after the chief mate on the Pequod, Starbuck.
Starbucks hired Howard Schultz as marketing manager and, on a trip to Vienna, he came up with the idea of creating a chain of Viennese-type coffee houses in the U.S. But the founders of Starbucks rejected the idea so Schultz went out on his own to implemnt his idea. In 1987, the original owners sold the Starbucks chain to former employee Howard Schultz, who rebranded his Il Giornale coffee outlets as Starbucks and quickly began to expand.
Starbucks is now the largest coffeehouse company in the world, with 20,891 stores in 62 countries.