Apple expanded its enormous retail empire this weekend with the grand opening of its new Puerta del Sol store that let its first customers through the crystal clear glass doors Saturday June, 21st in Madrid, Spain.
Customers lined up early Saturday morning to be among the first customers to enter Apple’s newest sanctuary, with some reports claiming nearly 600 queued up before opening hours to see the second largest Apple Store in Europe.
Staffed with over 125 employees, Apple’s newest shop doesn’t feature the large swaths of brushed aluminum and glass like many of its other retail spots, but instead boasts some of the most beautiful architecture in Madrid’s most famous and central square after Apple took four years to renovate the space that’s been around since the 14th century.
The Madrid store is Apple’s 101st store in Europe though certainly not the last, as other stores are under construction in Switzerland, Scotland, Italy, Turkey, Germany, Spain, Paris, Belgium and a host of other cities in Asia.
Congratulations to this amazing team at the new Apple Store Puerta del Sol in Madrid. Our 101st store in Europe! pic.twitter.com/QFr0GNV9FS
— Tim Cook (@tim_cook) June 23, 2014
Apple currently has 425 retail stores in 16 countries, but still plans aggresively expand its operations with plans for new stores in the U.S., including a new historic store on the Upper East Side of New York that will see the company move into an early 20th century bank building on Madison Ave as soon as 2015.