If you see an adorable new coffee shop in your neighborhood, don't be fooled...it might secretly be a Starbucks. The Seattle Times reported yesterday that the coffee titan is remodeling (in a "rustic, eco-friendly style") and renaming three of its Seattle-area stores; the first, 15th Avenue Coffee and Tea, opens next week. The store will "serve wine and beer, host live music and poetry readings and sell espresso from a manual machine rather than the automated type found in most Starbucks stores." "If the name change proves successful, the company may test this out in other markets," reports YumSugar. "Remember experimenting with alcohol and changing your name? Well, it must be Starbucks' freshman year at college," remarks Coffee Business Strategies.Not surprisingly, this idea strikes many as somewhat suspect. "Our first thought? 'Wow, this is sneaky,'" writes Counter Culture.

 Daily Finance doubts it'll work because in the Pacific Northwest there are two kinds of coffee shops: Starbucks, "and the other kind, the one this new Starbucks venture is trying to be, where customers who reject corporate sameness and value truly great coffee drinks geek out, proudly greeting the owners by name and knowing the baristas by the music playing over the sound system." "They want to be the original mom and pop coffee house--a cool place to hang out, listen to live tunes and complain about corporate America's plans to make everything, mind numbingly--yet profitably--the same," says The World Newser. But The Brand Man Speaks thinks this is not a bad plan: "I have recommended to clients many times over the years the idea of establishing a new sub-brand to introduce ideas and concepts that might undermine the core brand and give an entity the opportunity to reach different/new audiences." It won't work for Silenced Majority Portal, though, who comments, "I've been boycotting them for ages but this is new ammo."