A Peet's Coffee & Tea cafe opens today in Waikiki, introducing another major premium-coffee retail chain to the Hawai'i market.

The Berkeley, Calif.-based company enters the market under a licensing deal with a Los Angeles-based restaurant firm that will own and operate the cafe at the Sheraton Waikiki hotel.

The licensee, MCC Coffee Group, also is seeking to add more Peet's cafes on O'ahu and the Neighbor Islands.

"We're real excited to be opening," said Chipper Pastron, an MCC Coffee partner. "We are proud to be the first to bring a truly unique Peet's experience to local residents and tourists alike."

Peet's joins an increasingly crowded local landscape of cafes dominated by more than 50 Starbucks stores. Other chains growing in Hawai'i include Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf and Seattle's Best. Last year, McDonald's also began opening specialty coffee kiosks inside several of its Hawai'i restaurants.

The Peet's cafe is a small shop without seating near the hotel's pool deck. The operation, referred to by Peet's as a kiosk, moved into retail space formerly occupied by the take-out food shop Kau Kau Express.

The cafe is a scaled-down version of a typical Peet's retail store, and will sell packaged Peet's coffee beans but won't feature bins containing beans for bulk sale that are common in full-sized Peet's stores.

MCC Coffee is an affiliate of MCC Hospitality Group, which operates seven restaurants in California and Las Vegas, including the Dragon Noodle Co. and Sushi Bar at the Monte Carlo Resort and a Morels French Steakhouse & Bistro at The Palazzo. MCC from 1988 to 1993 operated Rose City Diner in Honolulu at Restaurant Row.

Peet's was established in 1966 by Alfred Peet, who was instrumental in establishing the specialty coffee industry in the U.S. and initially supplied beans to the founders of Starbucks.

The company in recent years has grown by selling packaged beans through grocery stores, including most large chains in Hawai'i, and by opening retail stores and kiosk cafes. Presently the company has 178 full-size stores, which is up from 76 in 2003.