Italian restaurants began to gain popularity in the U.S. around 1970.
High-end restaurants in New York and chains like Old Spaghetti Factory and Spaghetti Warehouse became popular.
Originally, the U.S. was a multi-ethnic nation with a large Italian-American population. However, during this period, the number of Italian restaurant chains nationwide increased, spreading the habit of eating Italian food and experiencing Italian culture among other ethnicities.
As a result, Italian food, wine, and cheese came to be recognized as a high-end, sophisticated menu item among Americans as a whole.
Also around this time, a television program about Italian food, called The Romagnolis' Table, aired on the American public broadcasting network PBS.
As a result, wine, pasta, and olive oil became popular in the "average household."
As a result, Italian food became more popular among Americans, and establishments serving Italian espresso began to appear.
It was at this time, as Italian food was becoming more popular among Americans, that Dave Olsen opened the espresso bar Café Allegro in Seattle in 1975.
Allegro opened Café Allegro in a back alley in the Seattle University district, creating one of Seattle's first espresso bars.
Olsen purchased beans from Starbucks and collaborated with the company to develop an espresso roast (later known as the "espresso roast").
This roast, with a profile slightly darker than standard roasts but not the darkest, is still used as Starbucks' standard espresso to this day.
However, at this time, Starbucks itself refrained from serving espresso drinks in its stores due to the high price of espresso machines, the lack of maintenance and repair services for them, and the unfamiliarity of espresso itself among Americans. Italian restaurants also offered drip coffee, but espresso was rarely offered. However, when Howard Schultz created a sales system that focused on espresso in the 1980s, he was able to capitalize on this sophisticated image of Italian food culture.
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