1 · POSITION
Gerald Baldwin, Gordon Bowker and Zev Siegl were the three founders who opened Starbucks in Seattle in 1971 as a specialty coffee retailer committed to high-quality beans and coffee knowledge.
2 · 1971
The first Starbucks opened in Seattle's Pike Place Market in 1971.
3 · THREE FOUNDERS
Starbucks' own history explicitly names Baldwin, Bowker and Siegl as founders.
4 · SPECIALTY COFFEE
The original company focused on roasted coffee beans, tea and spices rather than the later espresso-bar model.
5 · QUALITY
Their central contribution was a serious specialty-coffee culture built around sourcing, roasting and product knowledge.
6 · ALFRED PEET
Peet's Coffee founder Alfred Peet was an important influence and mentor in the founders' coffee education.
7 · SEATTLE
The Pacific Northwest setting became part of the institution's early identity.
8 · RETAIL NOT COFFEEHOUSE
The original Starbucks should not be retroactively described as Howard Schultz's later third-place coffeehouse.
9 · HOWARD SCHULTZ
Schultz joined in 1982, was inspired by Milan espresso bars in 1983, founded Il Giornale and later acquired Starbucks with investors.
10 · LAYERED AUTHORSHIP
The founders created the coffee institution; Schultz transformed its service format and global hospitality model.
11 · RESERVE BOUNDARY
The Reserve Roastery concept belongs to the much later Schultz-era experiential layer.
12 · WHY COMBINED CARD
The three founders' authorship is fundamentally collective and is best preserved in one card.
13 · WHY GROUP II
Owner-Creators & Concept Authors is the strongest classification: they founded the institution and specialty-coffee proposition, while Schultz receives Group I for the category-shaping coffeehouse hospitality model.
14 · REGISTRY STATUS
No Baldwin/Bowker/Siegl People entry was identified in the current LHL register context; no number is invented.
15 · CANDOUR
Popular histories often start Starbucks with Howard Schultz. LHL keeps the chronology strict: Baldwin, Bowker and Siegl founded Starbucks in 1971; Schultz later transformed what the customer did inside a Starbucks.
16 · CONCLUSION
The Starbucks founders created the product authority before the brand created the place. Without their obsession with coffee quality, Schultz's later third place would have had no credible reason to exist.