New stores add a fresh taste and aroma to high-speed travel on Japan’s busiest bullet train route.

One of the joys of Shinkansen travel is being able to bring your own food and drinks on board. However, with the high-speed rail service being famously punctual, you don’t always have time to pick up what you need when rushing to get your train.

It’s a pre-departure dilemma that Starbucks is now seeking to address by opening stores right at the platform. Late last year, the chain broke new ground by opening its first-ever Starbucks on a Shinkansen platform, and now it’s announced plans to open additional stores at two more major stations on the line.

The first location opened on JR Shin-Yokohama Station’s downbound Platform 11 last November and quickly proved popular with travellers. However, demand also led to queues and longer wait times, prompting Starbucks to temporarily close the store in April to improve its ordering system before reopening in June.

The chain now appears confident that it has a good working model from which to expand operations, and so has announced that the “travel Starbucks experience” will soon be arriving at Shinkansen platforms at JR Kyoto Station and JR Nagoya Station, with the new locations scheduled to open from next year.

While Starbucks hasn’t shared any details about the exact platforms where the new stores will be located, or when in 2027 they will open, the existing Shin-Yokohama branch gives us a pretty good idea of what we can expect.

Rather than being full-scale cafes with chairs and tables, the new stores look set to be takeaway kiosks – the Shin-Yokohama Shinkansen platform store measures just 13.9 square metres (150 square feet) – with no seating at all.

Designed for travellers with trains to catch, the new kiosk-style Starbucks focuses on speed, serving a limited menu of freshly brewed coffee, including decaf options, and a small selection of snacks. Orders are placed via a touchscreen terminal, and the store is entirely cashless.

The new Kyoto and Nagoya platform branches look set to follow the same formula, so Shinkansen passengers can easily squeeze in a Starbucks order before stepping on the train. With the Shin-Yokohama platform branch recently receiving its own unique digital stamp in Starbucks’ “My Store Passport” app feature, which allows visitors to collect a virtual souvenir of their visit, the Kyoto and Nagoya branches are likely to receive their own stamps when they open too.

▼ The Shin-Yokohama stamp highlights its location in Kanagawa Prefecture.

With all three platforms servicing the Tokaido Shinkansen, Japan’s most popular route that runs from Tokyo to Kyoto and Shin-Osaka, we wouldn’t be surprised if a Starbucks Shinkansen stamp rally might soon be in the works. For the chain that gave us 47 prefecture-exclusive Frappuccinos and a Discovery Series that celebrates local regions and traditions, we have a feeling that the new Shinkansen platform stores are just the start of the journey for the “travel Starbucks experience”.

Source: Press release
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Insert images: Press release, ©SoraNews24
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