What does Veeky Forums think of Starbucks

Satan

It's not great, but it is cheap (I can get a shot in the dark for less than 3 bucks at my locals), and the staff is generally a hell of a lot nicer than most of the local places. There is one expensive place that I go to occasionally that does fucking PRIMO pour over, but other than that I'll stick to the bucks.

why do people pay for pour overs? the point of coffee on the go is convenience, if I had 10 extra minutes I'd grind and brew it myself. plus they usually get distracted trying to multitask and it ends up no better than, and sometimes worse than, the urn coffee

>Starbucks is basically McDonalds but for coffee
That is my opinion as well, though I'd rather go to McDonald's because their coffee is cheaper.

The Starbucks density in central business districts and airports is usually higher than the McDonalds density, but otherwise I agree

Also Starbucks has bottled water you can jam in the laptop bag, but McDonalds only has cups that spill everywhere because their traditional customers cannot wrap their minds around paying for water

Overpriced and pretentious. I'd rather go to Timmies even if their coffee sucks since they were bought by Burger King. Fucking americans ruining everything. Still love you though

I work there. Ama

It's convenient, and an absolutely necessary evil when you're stuck somewhere like an airport or a conference. Their bagels aren't incredibly overpriced, either (compared to the rest of their food). These days, it really does seem like they make most of their money by being a glorified milkshake dispensary.

Eww

>junk food tier coffee is pretentious
Let me guess Coors is for sophisticated nu-males and real men drink Bud Light

PRetty much my opinon as well.

I hate that I really enjoy their macha frappuchinos as much as I do

A bit of theatre really.

4thpbp

>women are people or that slavery happened
go back to /x/

never been. i brew 8 cups on monday and i drink from that pot in the mornings thru friday. no need to pay more than .25 for a cup of coffee.

Starbucks coffee tastes like a burnt daiper and their milkshakes are why girls are over 200 pounds.

...

>tfw fat fetishist

Guess I should thank them then

>former Starbucks Store Manager and "Coffee Master"
It can be good, but more often than not the people working there don't give a fuck and honestly aren't paid enough to give a fuck. Turnover rates are high at most locations and hours are being cut by corporate no matter what they say to the contrary. When people call it the McDonalds of coffee, they aren't far off, but I'd say it's the Hardees of coffee with DD being the McDonalds.

The biggest problem isn't so much the barista that forgets to add a shot, or forgets your flavor, but the management not cultivating a good environment. I'm forced to be "that guy" every time I order a flat white at another Starbucks because they almost always take the easy way and make a fucking cappuccino. Part bad training, part lack of culture of pride in work, part corporate making window and cafe times the highest priority. I'll only make a deal about it when they aren't in a rush, and I've even walked a barista through how to make a proper flat white. None of this even gets into inventory and equipment management which is also a big problem at many locations. Sometimes getting preventative maintenance done on your Mastrena was just a pain in the ass, and many poorly trained SMs don't even know that's a thing they need to do twice a year. This leads to poorly calibrated shots, temps, pressure and contamination; all of this which doesn't get caught because no one fucking tests shots at open and throughout the day, only bothering to calibrate when it's far outside the norm and the machine stops and tells them they need to.

tl;dr It can be great, but never expect it to be. The entire culture there has gone rotten in the past decade.

I like their mango black tea lemonade.

i like the mocha fraps as a treat once in a while, but ive never had their coffee or anything else on their menu

The kind of people that go to Starbucks are probably my least favourite kind of people
If you regularly go to Starbucks then i recommend suicide

I hate starbucks, literally every small-time coffee shop that opens up tries to imitate starbucks including their pricing and their heavy emphasis on blended ice drinks and not regular ass espresso.

If they made veranda blend all day, I'd go more often but they only have it for the morning addict rush.

In general I like starbucks. Their medium/bold coffee is good enough and their espresso is pleasant.

I frequent a Starbucks near me and they know me by name, it's a really nice place. Some of them have dicks working at them, though. All in all, despite the hipsters that populate it, Starshmucks is pretty good.

Their drip is good, at least at locations not too rural to have a daily roast.

They're successful because they sell milkshakes that don't feel like they're milkshakes.
>It's just a coffee, tee hee.

It's just a place that sells coffee

Also, some tips for some cool drinks, which are also guaranteed ways to annoy your barista

>cool lime refresher, substitute the water for green tea
Makes it mintier and also higher caffeine content, I'd also recommend asking for no dried lime wheels, but that's preference. Currently CLR isn't on menu, but it's still available.

>Substitute the frap roast (weird retardedly strong coffee that smells like soy sauce and tastes like liquid beef jerkey) in any coffee based frappuccino for cold brew for a much smoother, better taste

>normal frappuccinos with mocha use the standard darker, somewhat chalky imo tasting mocha sauce that's there year round, but during summer when they Smores is available, there's a milk chocolate sauce and you can have them sub it in any mocha drink like Mocha frap, salted caramel mocha (hot, iced or frap)

>the secret menu is not a real Starbucks thing, just some blogger's bullshit. If you want something from it, bring the recipe and be aware that some of the stuff on there is complete BS and Starbucks never even had some of the ingredients, or they were one-time ingredients that aren't available anymore

>Rewards members get free refills on pretty much any non-espresso or frappuccino drink; non-rewards members can get refills as well, but, at least when I was still there, they were 50 cents. You don't even need to get the same thing, just same size or smaller eg. You can get a venti pikes place, sit in cafe and drink it, then before you leave get a grande "refill" of a iced green tea. If they make a fuss about it, I think it was page 10 of the beverage resource manual that lays out the refill policy, but it's also been a few years so maybe a different page now, but policy is the same

I can answer other questions if anyone has them. I think I still have some of my old training and policy manuals in a box in my closet

>this is what normies think

low grade burnt beans. the only note you pick up from their espresso is burnt covering up shit 3-6 month old B grade coffee beans.

Are you my girlfriend?

>overpriced
Compared to what? I've never understood that argument, other than hotels, airports, etc where everything is grossly overpriced. Their coffee is less than a dollar more than McDonalds or Speedway and a hundred times better.

It's okay. I like it if I'm in a rush and can't just make something at home, but so much of their stuff is so sugary. Like I'm getting a decadent dessert instead of a drink. They are the fast food of coffee, if that makes sense.

why are your women so obsessed with posting latte art they make in cups no one will ever see? are americans that bored at work?

I like the hot cinnamon almondmilk macchiato, green tea frap, and cool lime refresher. I go there on my breaks at work sometimes bc our store has a built in starbucks. Hella overpriced tho

what are you trying to say? that picture is "latte art"? lol

>trust fundies can't eat junk food
No its for basic bitches and numales. Dunking donuts and even ducking panera bread have better coffee and it isn't burnt.
>he think a literal ice cream coffee flavored shake with 80g of sugar is "coffee"

Meant for Also
Their coffee is garbage unless youre literally getting ice cream

Simple matter of pride in work. That couple with women's retarded need to make everything they do a public occasion to get praise. I'd rather have that than my baristas run a rinse cycle into the customer's cup and try to serve that as a drink.
>yes, I saw that happen. No, they didn't do it accidentally. Yes, I fired them on the spot.
I'm really proud of it because that was one of my trainees first attempts they made for me when I ordered a drink one day. It ain't perfect, but it was cool to see them try. Don't be so negative.

>even ducking panera bread
Why do you do this? Just type the word "fuck," or leave it out of the sentence.

Dunkin Donuts coffee tastes like shit to me, there's no Panera on my way to work, so Starbucks it is. their regular dark roast is pretty good

Autocorrect ;_; and surely you could go to 7/11 or something instead of drinking estrogen and icecream every morning?

Despite being a coffee place, I only come here for the non-milk based beverages and they're really good.

Also work at celestial dollars,
The starbucks in your area must be absolute shit if they're making cappuccinos when it's supposed to be a flat white.

For you faggots
1) shots cost extra, but if you're getting a tall size latte lets say or a grande flat white and ask for long or ristretto shot, you can ask for the extra one and they'll likely give it to you for free

because those shots can only pour in 2's

2)"alternate" milks cost extra

3) you can make whatever you want as long as you're willing to pay for it and we have the ingredients (syrup subs generally don't cost extra unless it's a drink that normally doesn't have sweetener)

4) get your fucking rewards card, we don't get anything from it but if you're coming even once a week it's worth it. You can get whatever you want including food. Just don't ask for a "venti whatever with 8 shots in 2 cups", most won't do it.

5) if it's not busy and you're not being a dick or if we know you and you're not a dick, you'll likely get charged less (ex: charged for a tall coffee and not a grande, "samples" of whatever you want etc)

If there's no line, get a pour over or french press. Tastes much better.

Overpriced swill for faggy liberals and women to virtue signal

Search "the kid from Brooklyn Starbucks"

>5) if it's not busy and you're not being a dick or if we know you and you're not a dick, you'll likely get charged less (ex: charged for a tall coffee and not a grande, "samples" of whatever you want etc)
Don't lie to me, I'm always as pleasant as I can be and I've never gotten anything. My girlfriend on the other hand gets free shit all the time. Just say "we'll treat you better if you're attractive and/or a woman"

I say "cappuccino" kind of loosely, but basically they won't bother doing ristretto shots and they foam it wrong because cappuccino foam is easier, then they just quickly dump it in. This usually happens when it's busier and they're worried about their times since flat whites are significantly more labor intensive. Also has to do with poor training, which often stems from low expectations of partner retention. They get them trained to the minimum necessary, run them through the grinder, and then hire new when they quit 4 months down the line. My district was pretty awful, so my DM loved me. iirc about half my staff at the time had been there at least 2.5 years. Went there recently and only two of those people are still there and they're starting to get bad turnover rates, but I guess they have a new manager again, so hopefully that will change.

Wait can you explain the birthday thing more.

Also the last time I was there they used my star rewards free cup instead of my birthday free cup, even though I specified they should use the birthday one, so my birthday drink expired without me getting to use it.
And they didn't even wish me happy birthday, reeee

>Explain to them what happened
>"Oh, I'm sorry that happened user. Don't worry about it, the drinks free today. How can we help?"
That's literally the easiest example of Make the Moment Right.™ If they didn't, you can easily call into corporate customer service and they bend the fuck back over for the customer, even at the expense of the baristas.
A cup of coffee is an extremely cheap price to pay for a loyal customer and not making a scene, and any manager that would say no to that is an idiot.

I didn't realize it until I got home and checked my balance online and saw I had no rewards left.

It's probably too late now, but really, even a couple days later and they'd do it. It's really not a big deal. It's something I did a lot when birthday rewards changed to only being good for the 3 days around your birthday. Caught a ton of people off guard.

Okay, think of it like this. Lets imagine you spend $5.40 per trip to Starbucks (this is right around the average transaction if I remember from some corporate training pamphlet we had a while back), and you go there 5 days a week before work. In one year, you would spend around $1400. If they were to lose you, that is what they would lose every year from then on. Now, if you made some scene, and 3 people saw this happen, and decided they didn't want to go there anymore, that's over $5600 they're losing out on annually, $5600 that's also likely to go into their local competition's pocket instead. NOW, we factor in social media
>A local Starbucks in Bumfuckville West Arkantucky refuses to honor free drink for man, turns into argument, all over a drink.
Doesn't matter if that's not accurate, 10 million people saw it. If they lost 60,000 customers over that, and these customers are all average regulars, they stand to lose over $16.8 million dollars from the bottom line.
And that is why you always Make the Moment Right.™

I would never make a scene, I just go home and stew on the my Burmese flipbook forum.

Maybe, but I had a woman make a scene and start taking names over a barista from another store helping out for a few days forgetting to ask her name, threatening to call corporate over the incident. How DARE this lowly barista forget to ask A GOLD REWARDS MEMBER what her name is. I managed to keep it slightly under control, but it was pretty bad.

I like it, but isn't the best. It is better than MD or DD. I only get black coffee tho.

Id sudoku if I worked at starcucks tbqh

Honestly my regulars were top-tier. Plus back when there was the whole "red cup" thing, the only people who ever brought it up were saying it was dumb that people were making an issue over it, and I even live in a more rural and like 80% conservative area, albeit outside of an extremely liberal metro. The worst, most entitled customers were always those who were regulars of a different local coffee chain, who just expected us to know how to make their drinks, and acted smug about "well, I normally get coffee from the other place, but I was in a hurry". They were fucking insufferable cunts despite being regulars at a chain who's known for overly-sweet drinks with zero trace of coffee flavor left over.

>I'd say it's the Hardees of coffee
WTF does that even mean? All the Hardees in my area closed years ago because they couldn't compete. I would kill for a Hardees Frisco burger.
>DD being McDonalds
wtf is "DD"?

When you get a starbucks giftcard you can register it on their website to be able to load more money onto the card. However, every registered account also gets a free date on whatever you set to be its birthday.

I order a lemonade and ask them to put 2 scoops of matcha powder in it, I order this for years.
>tfw lady gaga steals your drink
at least it's on the menu now.

why are you getting mad at me and not the other guy? calm down, all I'm saying is that's a pretty standard looking latte. latte art would be like butterflies or anime or cats
I imagine dunkin donuts, also I am not sure if hardees is even still around as a business but their food was terrible and good riddance if they are gone

I work for 11 months but will be leaving in 2 weeks. It can be great but honestly it's just way too stressful and the SM put too much shit on us for very little pay. They should cut most of those bullshit benefits.

It's overpriced and overrated

It's dumb. Plus working there sucks ass. They fuck you up

The trick is to make friends with a barista. I did at college and would always get great pour over because of it. Also free coffee a lot when they switched out for new pots.

I have never been to a starbucks in my entire life, what do you recommend me to get?

Like something that's done differently/better there than other places.

That's one of the biggest reasons why I don't go into a Starbucks, even if I'm going to buy overpriced coffee from a shop.

I hate the whole rigamarole of pretending to be my friend, asking me my first name, etc.

>hot
If you want a stronger espresso taste, flat white; these are also good with toffee nut flavor
If you want less espresso taste, white chocolate mochas are extremely popular.
There's also the caramel macchiato, which is easily the most popular drink where I live.
>iced
Ice caramel macchiato same as above.
My favorite is the double shot on ice. Normally it's sweetened with the "classic" simple syrup, but I almost always substitute that for white mocha.
For a non-espresso I go with either the vanilla sweet cream cold brew or the cool lime refresher I mentioned before
>frappuccinos
I don't get them often, but when I do it's almost always a vanilla bean frappuccino (normally non-coffee), affogato style (a shot of espresso poured over top) and I recommend if you do it affogato, to do it without whip cream.
Eh, I can understand that. Especially if you had one like used to work for me. She knew way too much about a bunch of our regulars; just dug into their personal lives. As for asking for first name, that's because people are fucking retarded and don't understand that when we shout "venti mango black tea lemonade for Mike", that no, that does not mean it's your grande hot caramel macchiato Becky; stop grabbing at every fucking drink and telling us that's not what you ordered.

I always just gave them my surname, which no one knows how to spell or pronounce even though it's a fairly simple name and not even a foreign one.

>venti
>grand
>wall of text over fast food Mcdonald's tier """"job"""
This is why I don't eat at starcucks

Also an employee. rip me

Every time I go to other stores it's a toss up on what I get. Badly steamed milk and dead shots seem to happen so much.

We need to get out of the hell hole dude

>1) shots cost extra, but if you're getting a tall size latte lets say or a grande flat white and ask for long or ristretto shot, you can ask for the extra one and they'll likely give it to you for free

Yeah there's no way that would fly at some stores. A bunch of people tried that after some viral Facebook post told that and my DM put the brakes on that.

mfw this is the highest paying thing I've got going for me
I'm going to be an SS soon as well.

Overpriced milkshakes

Gawd ur so fukin kewl maybe u shud jus do it anyway tbqh

i get gift cards for them all the damn time so i see it more of a place to stop at when i'm walking about

friend from my school suggested a vanilla frappe that's just cream and like 5 pumps of raspberry syrup i believe?
fruity af but its a good refresher to mix things up

Go to Dunkin Donuts, Starbitch is shit.

.

Alright thanks, I'll go for a caramel macchiato I suppose and a vanilla frappuccino. ( frappuccino? who the hell comes up with this shit)

Eww