6 Must-See Murals at Starbucks Community Stores Around the World
These stores offer unique opportunities for Starbucks partners (employees) to connect with, engage and represent the communities they serve.
In 2015, Starbucks launched its Community Store Program to help strengthen the communities where we live, work and grow. These stores offer unique opportunities for Starbucks partners (employees) to connect with, engage and represent the communities they serve. One way this can be seen is through custom artwork found within these stores. Throughout the world, Starbucks works with local creators of all backgrounds to develop unique art pieces for its Community Stores, celebrating local community customs, traditions and heritage.
While Starbucks Community Stores serve different groups and different cultures around the world, each of the unique art pieces within these stores depict the power of connection and belonging, core to the company’s mission.
Farming & Cultivation – San Antonio, TX
Dedicated to the San Antonio community, this store’s mural depicts local culture, traditions and history.
Artist Alex Rubio is a San Antonio native, identifying with Chicano culture. In this mural, Rubio demonstrates his signature curvilinear line design, Zarape, which can be seen dancing around the artwork’s central image. In the mural’s center, two hands are depicted holding newly picked coffee cherries, preparing for their freshly brewed order.
Rubio has a long history of mentorship in the San Antonio community. This commissioned piece was put together with support from the youth program Rubio is mentoring called San Antonio Street Art Initiative (SASAI). Members of the program collaborated with Rubio on the initial sketch and concept phase of the mural, which Rubio finalized for the store.
Unity & Vibrance – Fort Lauderdale, FL
Dedicated to the people of Fort Lauderdale, this mural represents unity and coffee.
Nate Dee, a local artist from South Florida, channels his Haitian roots in his artwork and is inspired by the quality of the Art Nouveau movement, Greek art from the Hellenistic and pop surrealists. Dee pulled from these influences to craft a mural depicting animals from regions where Starbucks sources its coffee beans, paired with symbols of unity.
Texture & Movement – Xiulin Township, Hualian
This store draws on the rich indigenous culture in Hualian, including featured artwork created by indigenous artists Miru Hayung and Eleng Luluan.
Miru Hayung is a self-taught Atayal artist who was born and raised in the LaLa Mountain region of Taiwan. Of his art, Hayung shares that the abstract approach to his art has given a new identity towards his culture. To create this piece (left), Hayung used vibrant images to illustrate how coffee connects people and the environment.
Eleng Luluan has lived in Dulan, Taitung for the last 20 years, where she specializes in sculpture with composite media and environmental installation. In this piece (right), Luluan used local textiles and embroidery cloth to create an artistic landscape of plants and coffee trees.
Generational Ties & Flourishing Colors – Brooklyn (Bed-Stuy), NY
Dedicated to the Bedford–Stuyvesant (aka Bed-Stuy) community, this mural is bright, colorful and community-minded.
Artist Olalekan Jeyifous is a Brooklyn based artist whose work re-imagines social spaces that examine the relationships between architecture, community, and the environment. This vibrant mural depicts individuals of all ages coming together, holding up plant-life and watering a city that emulates the beauty and life in the city of Brooklyn.
Inclusion & Togetherness – Seoul
The Seoul Community Store, located in the Seoul National University Dental Hospital (SNUDH), was designed with a specific focus on inclusive design.
The store’s central art piece, created by Starbucks partners (employees), demonstrates the positive impact that Starbucks partners with disabilities have had on the company. It also depicts partners’ hopes to create a place where all people can come together over a cup of coffee. To create this piece, partners across South Korea contributed individual clay pieces, arranged to create the word “Together” in English, mounted on a background of upcycled Starbucks coffee grounds.
Black History & Culture – Columbia, SC
Dedicated to the Columbia, South Carolina community, this custom mural is titled “A Great Cloud of Witnesses” and depicts three Columbia locals – a nurse and two artists – overlaid with photographs honoring local Black history and culture.
The one of a kind piece came to life from the collaboration of two artists, Lauren Andreu and Jared Owens. Andreu is a muralist based in Columbia who uses color that draws the eye to show the different parts of the story she is looking to tell. Owens is South Carolina native who began his art practice while incarcerated, where he studied art magazines, books, encyclopedias, and critics reviews in newspapers to inform his artistic style and craft.
