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Starbucks testing wine, beer, meals, new colors

In this photo from April 27, 2010, customers visit a redesigned New York Starbucks located in the SoHo neighborhood. Starbucks plans to redesign some stores by combining separate elements from nearly a dozen locations around the globe. (AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews, File)

Starbucks’ “Olive Way” laboratory store near Seattle will be the coffee chain’s biggest percolator yet for ideas that the world’s largest coffee company has been testing separately at nearly a dozen locations around the globe. And what succeeds at Olive Way will most likely be spread to other Starbucks stores around the country.

With muted, earthy colors, an indoor-outdoor fireplace, cushy chairs, and a menu with wine from the Pacific Northwest’s vineyards and beer from local craft brewers, this 2,500-square-foot shop in the Capitol Hill neighborhood will reopen in the fall with espresso machines in the middle.

“It’s going to feel very different,” said Kris Engskov, Starbucks’ regional vice president.