Starbucks expended a good deal of noodle-work to come up with the new store concept. The company sent its marketing sleuths slinking around Seattle’s independent coffee houses and, after reviewing the data, decided that many customers enjoy a sense of place rather than the homogenized blandness of Starbucks -- right down to the mass-produced horse’s-patootie art on the wall.

For this you need an MBA?

Sebastian Simsch, co-owner of Seattle Coffee Works near Pike Place Market, said Starbucks employees crowded into his 300-square-foot store last year to nose around.

“I thought it was funny,” Simsch told the Seattle Times. “We’re this little store and I thought Starbucks didn’t need to learn from me.”

The drones finally got so thick that Simsch called Starbucks' corporate office to complain. The aspiring sleuths didn’t return, even when he moved into a bigger space next door. But they may have picked up some pointers.

It’s easy to toss rocks at Starbucks -- especially after the company’s recent troubles and store closures. But Starbucks became a hit because it brought a new product to a new market and quickly defined the sector. Let’s not forget how deftly the company moved during its great expansion and how it once rewarded stockholders with steady gains. Maybe it can regain its footing by going local.

Somewhere along the way, Starbucks lost sight of something many coffee lovers swear Peet’s (PEET) consistently gets right: quality. Going local suggests that Starbucks will tailor its products to local tastes while keeping a sharper eye on quality. In any case, it plans to make espresso by hand at its neighborhood coffee houses.

Starbucks seeks to mass-market quirky ambiance. That may sound contradictory, but it should be a piece of cake: Once upon a time, the music industry turned a bunch of working-class kids from England into cultural icons, creating a “revolution” that still plagues us today.

Ain’t capitalism grand?