Frappuccino invented in Santa Monica?

Greg Rogers, a flack at CRPR who represents Anisette and other restaurants, tells Eater LA that he created the Frappuccino while working at a Starbucks on Third Street Promenade: "No really, it's even mentioned in Howard Schultz's (Starbucks' CEO) book."

This was around 1994. I think we were like the third Starbucks in Santa Monica, and in the warm months, in summer, we noticed business would slow down considerably....I told my Starbucks manager that we should have a frozen drink because it's so hot here and there are a lot of kids. I think I did say that Coffee Bean had one, we should have one. But I didn't go and break it down and try to figure out what was in it, I just used what we had in the store....

It happened that the vice president of Starbucks Howard Behar was in town touring the new LA locations, and he was curious why we had a blender. We gave him the drink and he loved it, and immediately called Howard Schultz and said that we had something here. Schultz was immediately against it for two reasons: One, he had brokered a deal with Coca Cola to do a coffee coca cola drink and that was just ready to come out that year. He said that would be our cold beverage star. And two, he wasn't really into having blenders in the store, that it went against the coffee culture of Starbucks.

Schultz came around. Eater LA also mentions that Anisette began serving dinner this week, but be warned. My experience there at brunch on Father's Day — early, before the crowds arrived — left our group less than wowed. They might want to work on the service and the kitchen. But the pictures are gorgeous.