CHAPEL HILL - After visiting 425 outlets, doing 272 interviews and reading thousands of articles, Bryant Simon was ready to tell his Starbucks story to the world.

Stopping at his alma mater Thursday, the UNC grad discussed his new book "Everything But the Coffee: Learning About America from Starbucks." The book looks at how the business has been able to attract so many customers the past two decades, making it the behemoth corporation that it is today.

The Chapel Hill News sat down with Simon, professor of history and the director of American Studies at Temple University, and asked him about his book tour and returning to his college stomping grounds.

Q: How has the visit back to Chapel Hill been going?

A: It's great to be back in Chapel Hill. I was here in the fall, I brought my kids to a football game. It's fun looking at what's not here and where I lived, and I can't believe that Schoolkids closed. That was the biggest blow. I spent a lot of time hanging around Schoolkids.

Q: What's it like promoting your book in a smaller, college town as compared to the bigger cities?

A: I think college towns probably have higher concentrations of readers. Probably the downside of a college town with people coming to talk is less people with money. You might get big crowds, but not sell as many books.

Q: Is there any other company you would be willing to do the same amount of research on that you did for Starbucks?

A: I could probably find similar things about American life, about what we care about, about class, about status if I looked at, say, Whole Foods. I actually worked during graduate school at A Southern Season. If I talked to A Southern Season customers, I could probably find really similar patterns about why they buy the things that are important to them, how they're trying to represent themselves and say something about themselves.

Q: Are there any other stops that you're looking forward to for this tour?

A: I'm going to give a talk at the the Philadelphia Free Public Library, which is near where I live. They draw really interesting, diverse crowds, like people who don't necessarily have a place to sleep, downtown lawyers, so you get this really interesting collection of people in some ways that you don't get at other places and it has a tradition of people just showing up. So I think that'll be a good event.

Q: If you could get one person to read your book and take something away from it, who would it be?

A: Howard Schultz, the CEO of Starbucks, and I can think of the one thing I really want him to take away ... [what if] anytime you get a cup of Starbucks and the person behind the counter says "For here or to go?" you push a ceramic cup? Reduce the carbon footprint, reduce the amount of cups being used. It's a very simple change ... and I'd feel like I was able to sort of do something even larger than communicate a set of ideals.