Cortona Cafe opened in the Central District this morning and will host a grand opening party for the public -- with free coffee -- Saturday from 8 p.m. to 10 p.m. Drip coffee will be free all day, and espresso drinks will be $1.

Barista Whitney Aguirre (top photo, and one of 150 people who applied for five barista jobs) pulled Herkimer Coffee espresso shots this morning while owner Will Little put finishing touches on Cortona's web site and hung its two outdoor signs. He also posed for a photo (middle) in the cafe's spacious loft area, which has a slide projector and recovered wood tables that can push together to form a community table.

The loft space, which can be reserved online, is free to anyone who wants to hold an event as long as it's open to the public, lasts no more than two hours and "respects the viewpoints, cultures, and opinions of the people present."

Little, who has his Ph.D. in bioengineering from the Swiss Technology Institute in Zurich, named Cortona after an Italian village where the institute takes part in a regular multidisciplinary conference where ideas are shared. "I want the name to lead into dialogue, to bring together people from different backgrounds to discuss different issues," he said.

He grew up in Bremerton and has bachelor's and master's degrees from the University of Washington. While he was preparing to attend medical school, his UW adviser got a job at the institute in Zurich and invited her advisees to come with her and get their Ph.D.s.

Little married his sweetheart, now Sarah May Little, and they spent three years in Zurich. The couple has two children, and he is a volunteer pastor at Mars Hill Church.

He also has a consulting business based on the computer language Ruby, formed when he "geeked out" in Zurich. He hopes to sell it and use the cash to invest in other Central District businesses.

Little said he frequents nearby Tougo Coffee and initially approached its owner, Brian Wells, about opening a third Tougo in the space that's now Cortona at 2425 East Union Street. Instead, Wells has helped him with the shop design, hiring and training, and the coffee program.

Cortona is open 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. seven days a week. Baked goods are from Essential Baking, and Little hopes to offer crepes and waffles soon.

View Cortona Cafe in a larger map

After remodeling stores in Seattle, Tokyo and Paris Disney Village with its new, community-focused design, Starbucks has taken those ideas to the U.K., where The Times of London reports that the first of 100 "individualized" Starbucks opens in Central London today (although the article is dated tomorrow, and even the time change doesn't account for that).

The Times says Starbucks "looks to recapture some of the cool, relaxed ethos of its first branches in Seattle 38 years ago -- and steal customers back from its rivals."

"We are not trying to disguise that it's Starbucks," said Tim McCoy, head of communications for Starbucks in the U.K., told The Times. "It still says Starbucks on the door, but we needed something different. There are a lot of copycat chains around and we thought people would feel better disposed to us if they felt the store was part of their community and knew the people there."

Sounds a lot like Starbucks' stores at First Avenue and Pike Street, University Village and the 15th Avenue Coffee and Tea location on Capitol Hill.

In a similar story focusing on Starbucks' optimism about the U.K., the Wall Street Journal online discussed Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz's rocky relationship with Lord Peter Mandelson, who became incensed earlier this year when Schultz said in a television interview that "The concern for us is western Europe and specifically the U.K. The U.K. is in a spiral.'"

The Times reported Mandelson's response, which included a four-letter attack on Schultz that began, "Why should I have that guy running down the country?"

Later Mandelson said, "The U.K. is not spiralling, although I have noticed that Starbucks is in a great deal of trouble. But that may be because of their overexposure given the state of the market. So please do not project Starbucks on to the U.K. economy as a whole," The Times said.

The Wall Street Journal cattily surmised today that Lord Mandelson "will now be hoping" that Starbucks' improved fortunes will be mirrored in the U.K.'s long-suffering economy.

For good measure, the Journal also snarked that "Schultz's true love is China," which Schultz said this week will someday be Starbucks' largest international market.

Starbucks' Seattle's Best Coffee brand will sell brewed coffee through more than 9,000 Subway shops in the U.S. and 800 in Canada by the end of the years, the company said in a release early this morning elaborating on an agreement with Subway announced by CEO Howard Schultz on Thursday.

The release does not mention espresso drinks like lattes or cappuccinos, but says Subway shops will offer four SBC blends (although probably not all at the same time): Seattle's Best Blend (which the company touts as having a sweet, lively flavor with a smooth finish), Henry's Blend (nutty, hearty blend also used in SBC's espresso beverages) or 6th Avenue Bistro blend (dark, rich and smooth), along with Decaf Seattle's Best Blend. (The "or" is what makes me think they won't all be served at the same time.)

SBC has more than 550 cafes, kiosks and other locations in the U.S. and is sold at more than 6,000 foodservice locations, such as college campuses, restaurants, hotels, airlines and cruise lines. Its store count is included in Starbucks' overall total of 16,635 worldwide at the end of September.

Starbucks is backing away from its long-held dislike of fast food to partner nationally with Subway. Its Seattle's Best Coffee brand will be in 9,000 Subway stores by the end of this year, and will move into more of the sandwich shops next year, CEO Howard Schultz told analysts during a conference call about its quarterly results Thursday.

"Candidly, given the fact that fast-food players have gone after the breakfast business - specifically McDonald's - in such a big way, and made such big push into coffee, their core competitors want to compete directly with them in that space," Schultz said. "SBC is in the infant stages of what it could be domestically and internationally."

The company declined to give details, pending a press release early Friday morning. Subway said almost a year ago that it would test SBC brewed coffee in about 1,900 locations.

Starbucks has long recoiled at the thought of being a fast-food player itself. Schultz said in his 1997 book, "Pour Your Heart Into It," that he was pained by comparisons to fast-food businesses.

The company stuck by that reasoning a few years ago, when McDonald's approached Starbucks about supplying coffee for its new espresso program.

"We passed because it simply was not a good brand fit, and we're confident that was the right decision," Starbucks spokeswoman Deb Trevino said earlier this year.

It hasn't always been as cautious with the Seattle's Best Coffee brand, which it bought in 2003. SBC supplied some McDonald's stores in the Pacific Northwest until a couple years ago, and it has traditional franchises that Starbucks does not.

But there's a difference between being in some fast-food stores in the region and partnering nationally with a company that will soon pass McDonald's in total locations worldwide (about 32,000).

"It's certainly a change in attitude from what they've said in the past," said R.J. Hottovy, a restaurant analyst who follows Starbucks for the research firm Morningstar. "McDonald's probably would have been a stronger partner, given that they still have some company-owned locations, a stronger brand name and a better relationship with franchisees."

Still, it's a sign of progress that Starbucks is realizing what it has with SBC, he said. "It's a way of expanding in the U.S. without diluting the Starbucks brand, and Subway is probably just as excited to have a relatively well-known brand name partnering with them as well."

More information on the jump about Starbucks' earnings, including CFO Troy Alstead talking about when it will decide what to do with its $600 million pile of cash.

Investors sent Starbucks shares up quickly after it posted a fourth-quarter profit of $150 million,or 20 cents a share, better than analysts had expected and a vast improvement from its $5.4 million profit during the fourth quarter last year.

It had a 4 percent drop in sales, to $2.4 billion, which it more than made up for with $580 million in annualized cost cuts. That's $30 million better than it had promised to Wall Street. For the quarter, operating expenses were down 11 percent to $2.3 billion.

Starbucks also saw its seventh consecutive quarter of same-store sales declines, but its 1 percent drop was the least severe drop in all those quarters -- and better than the 3 percent decline that many analysts expected. It's an improvement from the 5 percent drop last quarter and the 7 percent decline during the fourth quarter a year ago.

The quarter included $53 million in restructuring charges, compared with $99 million in the fourth quarter last year. Without the charges, Starbucks would have earned 24 cents a share, better than the 21 cents that analysts expected, according to Thomson Reuters.

Investors applauded the results, sending shares up quickly after the announcement around 1:25 p.m. Pacific time. The stock had gained 49 cents to $19.70 in regular trading on Thursday

By the time executives began their 2 p.m. conference call with analysts, the stock was at $20.51 in after-hours trading. Starbucks stock has traded between $7.06 and $21.11 over the past year.

Starbucks complained to the Advertising Standards Authority in the United Kingdom about claims made by Costa, a competitor with almost 1,000 U.K. stores, in an ad campaign based on a survey of 334 coffee shop customers, The Times of London reports.

In one version, an ad says, "Sorry Starbucks -- the people have voted."

"The watchdog confirmed that it had received a complaint from the American coffee behemoth arguing that the Costa adverts were misleading and misrepresented the basis of the claims," The Times reports.

ASA referred part of the complaint to another regulator called Ofcom, which upheld Starbucks' assertion that cappuccino was "a drink that represents just a small proportion of coffee sales," and that for a survey to be representative, it should compare Costa against the whole market including independent and chain coffee shops, The Times reports.

Final recommendations from the ASA are expected in the next few days. Starbucks had 664 stores in the United Kingdom in September 2008, the last month for which a store count is available.

The nation's largest publicly-traded coffee shop chain after Starbucks, Caribou posted a third-quarter profit of $654,000, an improvement from the third quarter a year ago, when it lost $8.7 million.

Net sales were up 3 percent to $62.7 million for the Brooklyn Center, Minn.-based chain, which ended the quarter with 525 shops. None are in Washington.

Starbucks will release its fourth-quarter earnings after the stock market closes on Thursday.

I told you Paula Boggs could sing. Hear a snippet of her singing "Woodstock" in the video below, in which she also tells Black Enterprise that in this recession, "We've learned how to listen to our customers better."

And she discusses formative experiences in the Reagan White House.