Other names John Winter Smith Occupation Software programmer Name Winter Winter | Website Starbucks Everywhere Role Starbucks | |
Full Name Rafael Antonio Lozano Jr. Born March 20, 1972 (age 52) ( 1972-03-20 ) Chicago, Illinois | ||
Winter (born March 20, 1972 as Rafael Antonio Lozano Jr.) is a freelance software programmer and consultant. Winter was previously known by the name John Winter Smith, but reported having legally changed his name to Winter in 2006. He is best known for his goal to visit every Starbucks location in the world, visiting as many as 29 locations in one day.
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Background
Winter was born in Chicago, Illinois as "Rafael Antonio Lozano Jr." on March 20, 1972, with his family later moving to Houston, Texas. He later attended the University of Texas at Austin, where he graduated with a double major in philosophy and computer science. Winter currently works as a freelance programmer.
Starbucks
In 1997 Winter began visiting various Starbucks locations, expressing the intent to visit every Starbucks location in the world. To minimize the amount of Starbucks locations, he eliminated any licensed stores to focus solely on those owned by the company. For each location to "count" he would drink "at least one four-ounce sample of caffeinated coffee from each store." He would also take a picture and post it on his website.
Winter has estimated that he has spent over $100,000 on the project, drinking an average 10 cups of coffee a day and once spending $1400 on a plane ticket to purchase a cup of coffee from a Starbucks in British Columbia before it closed. As of January 2011, Winter reported having visited 10,000 global locations, including over 8,000 in the United States.
Documentary
In 2006 Winter was the focus of the documentary Starbucking. Starbucking was directed by Bill Tangeman and premiered at the 2006 Omaha Film Festival, with the DVD released in April 2007. Tangeman filmed about 40 hours of footage over a one-year period of Winter traveling to various Starbucks locations and interacting with other people, including a woman with whom he had been romantic. Critical reception for the film was mostly positive, with DVD Talk writing that although the film "doesn't offer much repeat viewing value", it was "highly watchable".