Three partners Jerry Baldwin, Zev Siegl and Gordon Bowker got inspired to sell high-quality coffee beans and equipment and formed a company. Initial plans to name this company was ‘Pequod’ – after the whaling ship from the 1851 novel Moby-Dick. The name was rejected and instead, the company was named after the chief mate of the Pequod ship, Starbuck. The first Starbucks was opened on March 30, 1971 in Seattle, Washington.
