Starbucks coming to Jonesborough

A popular coffee chain is on its way to Jonesborough.
Ingle’s Chief Financial Officer Ron Freeman confirmed the grocery store on Highway 11E will open a Starbucks inside the store this summer.
“It’s a license agreement. We build the kiosk to Starbucks specifications, but it is our employees working there,” Freeman said. “We have an agreement with Starbucks for a certain number of locations. We currently have about 21.”
While the Starbucks location will not include a drive-thru, it will include a lot of the other usual staples — beverages, of course, as well as a variety of pastries and space to sell the chain’s coffee by the pound.
“It won’t have as many pastries and things as the full-size, walk-in Starbucks, but it will have plenty,” Freeman said. “It won’t have everything, but it will have most everything.”
Hours for the coffee store, scheduled to open in early August, have yet to be set, Freeman said.
“We’ll cover first thing in the morning, the lunch hour and busy times of the day and early evening,” he said.
Freeman declined to comment on which other locations where a Starbucks may pop up, but said he was confident the Jonesborough location would be well received.
“We wouldn’t do it if we didn’t think it would be a successful location,” Freeman said.
Ingle’s, headquartered in Asheville, N.C., operates 200 stores throughout six southeastern states, including Tennessee, North Carolina and Virginia.
The news of a Starbucks opening in Jonesborough comes on the heels of an announcement of plans at a nearby convenience center to open a Dunkin’ Donuts store.
In May, the Jonesborough Board of Mayor and Aldermen agreed to consider selling a portion of town-own land that would allow the donut franchise to open alongside the Shell gas station at the corner of Highway 11E and Boone Street.
Ryan Broyles, president of Mountain Empire Oil, which owns the gas station, told town leaders he believed a Dunkin’ Donuts would do “really well” in Jonesborough.