MILAN: Starbucks is opening its first store in Italy, betting that premium brews and novelties like a heated marble-topped coffee bar will win customers in a country fond of its daily espresso rituals.
Decades ago, Milan’s coffee bars inspired the chain’s vision. Now Starbucks is hoping clients will visit its new store, called the Reserve Roastery, to watch beans being roasted, sip coffee or enjoy cocktails at a mezzanine-level bar in a cavernous, former post office near the city’s Duomo, or cathedral.
Starbucks chief design officer Liz Muller told said earlier this week that the company’s “not coming to Italy to teach people about coffee. This is where coffee was born.”
Instead, Muller said, Starbucks “wanted to come and bring a premium experience that is different to what people in Italy are used to.”
She described that formula as including “many different brewing techniques and a space where we want you to stay longer and relax and enjoy.”
In Italy, an espresso at a coffee bar is usually a quick morning or after-lunch ritual performed standing up. In many neighborhoods, cafes are practically on every corner, and Italians are on a first-name basis with their trusted barista.
Italy is Starbucks’ 78th global market, and the Milan opening comes 20 years after Starbucks opened its first store in Europe, in London. The company has described the Milan store as “the crown jewel of Starbucks global retail footprint.” It says it plans more cafes for Milan later this year.
Milan is the first place where Starbucks has opened a store in its Roastery format in untested territory. It opened a Roastery in Seattle, the US city that is home to its corporate headquarters, in 2014, and a second one in Shanghai last year.
Italians are used to marble counters for coffee bars, but Starbucks boasts that it outfitted its counter tops in the Milan store with heating so they won’t feel stone cold on chill days. The centerpiece of the Milan store is a 6.5-meter (22-foot) high bronze cask, part of the roasting process.
The company also hopes the store’s cocktail bar will be an attraction: Many who work in Milan, Italy’s fashion and financial capital, cherish the tradition of meeting friends or colleagues for an “aperitivo,” or pre-dinner cocktail, often in cafes.
Starbucks debuts in Italy with premium brews, novelty bar
Starbucks debuts in Italy with premium brews, novelty bar
- Decades ago, Milan’s coffee bars inspired the chain’s vision
- Now Starbucks is hoping clients will visit its new store, called the Reserve Roastery
Saudi Arabia’s budget deficit widens to $25.3bn in Q4 2025 as spending rises
RIYADH: Saudi Arabia’s capital spending rose 18 percent year on year in the fourth quarter of 2025, while higher overall expenditure widened the Kingdom’s budget deficit to SR94.85 billion ($25.28 billion), official data showed.
According to the Ministry of Finance’s Quarterly Budget Performance Report, government spending increased to SR371.6 billion in the three months to December, up 3 percent from SR360.5 billion in the same period a year earlier.
Capital expenditure — classified as spending on non-financial assets — climbed to SR50.9 billion in the fourth quarter from SR43.1 billion a year earlier, highlighting sustained investment in infrastructure and development projects.
Total revenues reached SR276.7 billion in the quarter, increasing from SR269.9 billion in the third quarter but declining about 9 percent from a year earlier due to weaker oil income.
Oil revenues totaled SR154.2 billion in the fourth quarter, down 10 percent year on year despite a quarterly increase supported by higher production levels. For the full year, oil revenues fell around 20 percent to SR606.5 billion from SR756.6 billion in 2024.
Non-oil revenues — a key pillar of Saudi Arabia’s diversification strategy — stood at SR122.6 billion in the fourth quarter. On an annual basis, non-oil revenues rose by 1 percent to SR505.3 billion in 2025, compared with SR502.5 billion the previous year.
Saudi Arabia maintained an expansionary fiscal stance throughout 2025, with total government expenditure reaching SR1.39 trillion, up 1 percent from SR1.36 trillion in 2024.
Spending increased across several priority sectors. Education expenditure rose 4 percent to SR212.5 billion, while health and social development spending increased 2 percent to SR278.9 billion.
Military and security sector spending climbed about 5 percent to SR249.1 billion, while public administration expenditure grew 7 percent. Spending on general items rose 3 percent, and regional administration outlays increased marginally by 0.4 percent.
For the full fiscal year, total revenues reached SR1.11 trillion against expenditure of SR1.388 trillion, resulting in a budget deficit of SR276.6 billion — exceeding earlier government projections as oil revenues declined.
Public debt rose to SR1.52 trillion at the end of 2025, compared with SR1.22 trillion a year earlier, as the Kingdom increased borrowing to finance fiscal gaps while continuing to fund large-scale development and infrastructure projects.
