Starbucks is staying in Seattle as the struggling chain tries to get back to its coffee core.

New CEO Brian Niccol — who previously served as CEO at Chipotle (CMG) — plans to keep the company close to its humble beginnings. The global giant got its start at Seattle's historic Pike Place Market in 1971.

"[Moving] right now is not on the list of things to do," Niccol told Yahoo Finance. "What I'm focused on is how do we make sure we get back to Starbucks in the stores ... We've got to make sure we've got a great culture at the Seattle support center, our New York support center, our Chicago support center."

Niccol has been focused on his "Back to Starbucks" plan, unveiled shortly after he took over in September. The initiative aims to simplify the menu, provide speedier service, reestablish stores as a community coffeehouse, and build better relationships with store crews.

The company's shares have gained less than 4% this year, far lagging S&P 500's 20% rise.

Investors have been curious if he'd execute a similar plan to the one he enacted at Chipotle, where he uprooted the burrito chain's headquarters from Denver and moved to Irvine, Calif. Starbucks has allowed Niccol to continue working from the Golden State.

“A relocation of Starbucks from Seattle not only would accelerate the search for talent (see the past history with Chipotle), but would also help Starbucks modernize its image,” Bernstein analyst Danilo Gargiulo said in a client note. “We believe that, in a world that is becoming increasingly divided, investors would benefit from greater perceived neutrality of the brand toward social and political issues associated with Seattle-location.”

But Starbucks and Seattle have been intertwined since day one.

The company was founded by Jerry Baldwin, Gordon Bowker, and Zev Siegl. Its first location in Pike Place was run by a single employee and mostly sold whole-bean coffee. By the early 1980s, Starbucks had four stores in the Seattle area.

Enter Howard Schultz as the head of marketing in 1982. A year later, a 30-year-old Schultz made his first trip to Italy and became enamored with the country’s coffeehouse culture. He returned with a desire to open many more Starbucks locations but was rebuffed by the original founders, who preferred to stay coffee bean-focused.

Frustrated, Schultz left Starbucks in 1985 and started his own coffee chain, Il Giornale. By March 1987, Baldwin and Bowker (Siegl had left years earlier) decided to sell Starbucks to Schultz — who folded Il Giornale into its operations.