Starbucks Sign Language Store

Why it matters: this is Starbucks China’s first sign language store, opened on 19 May 2019 – the country’s National Day for Helping the Disabled – and built with the Guangdong Deaf Association so that hearing-impaired baristas work the bar alongside hearing colleagues. Three deaf partners hold management roles here, including China’s first deaf Starbucks Coffee Master, and the store was redesigned around them: numbered food and drinks, handwriting boards, a double-sided ordering screen, a lowered counter and aprons embroidered with the sign-language letters of ‘Starbucks’. The menu is the standard one, but the artwork is not – look for the coffee-branch mural whose leaves are sign-language shapes, and the exclusive mugs and tote bags designed with deaf artists. Point at a number, then watch your barista sign ‘thank you’ back; it sits on Wende Bei Lu, a two-minute detour off the Beijing Road pedestrian street.