Starbucks had three founders. Two of them were teachers - English teacher Jerry Baldwin and history teacher Zev Siegel. The third, Gordon Bowker, was a writer. These three men started by opening a store in Seattle in 1971, called Starbucks Coffee, Tea and Spice. This store was in a well known market area and sold exotic teas and coffees, which all the three founders loved. Other shops had begun to do this kind of thing in other areas so they hoped to be as successful in Seattle.

They chose the name Starbucks, it is said, because that was the name of a sailor in the classic novel Moby Dick, who drank a lot of coffee. It's certainly true that the logo had a mermaid on it, and in its early days the company tried to have associations with the idea of the early spice traders etc who sailed all round the world looking for exotic goods.