Just to confirm, that's exactly what it is. From what I can tell around here, it's mostly for places that already have a larger unionized food service organization. Two examples that come to mind are the local university and a local hospital. These "Starbucks" use all of the branding and coffee, but are staffed by the organization that hosts the store.
Agreeing with you, I'm pretty sure there's no way for an individual to open their own Starbucks store; the licensed stores pretty much have to exist within a larger organization where it would be impossible to open a store independently (in the local cases, that'd be due to the food service unions).
In Canada at least, there's also instances where Starbucks has worked out some kind of cross-renting deal. Chapters/Indigo Books is a prime example. Every Indigo I've gone into has had a Starbucks, but those are staffed by Starbucks employees and not Indigo employees.
Agreeing with you, I'm pretty sure there's no way for an individual to open their own Starbucks store; the licensed stores pretty much have to exist within a larger organization where it would be impossible to open a store independently (in the local cases, that'd be due to the food service unions).
In Canada at least, there's also instances where Starbucks has worked out some kind of cross-renting deal. Chapters/Indigo Books is a prime example. Every Indigo I've gone into has had a Starbucks, but those are staffed by Starbucks employees and not Indigo employees.