Starbucks Burwood — Restaurant in Sydney

I experienced racial discrimination at this Starbucks, and I feel compelled to share what happened.

My friend and I ordered two Frappuccinos. I usually open the lid to enjoy the whipped cream, but this time I found a sharp, black hair-like object stuck in it. It looked like facial stubble or some kind of body hair. After confirming there was only that one object in the cup, my friend approached the staff member to ask about it. His response? “That’s strawberry hair.”

We were already uncomfortable with the dismissive tone, but decided to return to our seat to double-check the object. While walking back, I saw the staff member roll his eyes and frown at us. That’s when I really started to feel something was wrong.

After examining the object again—it felt stiff, coarse, and sharp, definitely not like anything that comes from strawberries—we decided to ask if it could be replaced. We politely asked: “Sorry, this really looks like a human hair. Could you please remake the drink?”

The response was shockingly rude and condescending: • “If it’s a human hair, you tell me, where’s it from?” • “I told you it’s strawberry hair, you look for yourself.” He pulled out a box of strawberries, glanced inside himself, and then quickly put it away—clearly avoiding showing us, which only made us more suspicious.

We asked: “Can we at least see the strawberries, and if they have anything like this, we’ll accept it.” He refused again, saying things like “This is not human hair. You can’t prove it’s human hair.”

Finally we asked: “Okay, could you just kindly remake the drink?” He said: “I could’ve remade it if you had approached me politely in the first place.”

At this point, we were honestly stunned. We had remained calm and respectful throughout. When I asked to speak with the manager, he smirked, rolled his eyes again, and said, “I am the manager.”

The entire conversation was filled with dismissiveness, sarcasm, and disrespect. He kept repeating things like “Ohh don’t you know it’s strawberry hair?” in a mocking tone, while treating us like we were being unreasonable. The most heartbreaking part? We noticed his attitude toward white customers was completely different—smiling, friendly, and attentive.

The staff member appeared to be of Asian descent himself, but regardless of ethnicity, the differential treatment we experienced as Asian customers was deeply offensive.

We left the drink untouched and walked out. A formal complaint has already been submitted via the official Starbucks website. For a global brand, this kind of behavior is absolutely...

Bought a coffee cup here for my daily commute to work. After payment, the cashier told me to bring the receipt with me in case there's any concern with the product. Came home to test the product and it would leak a lot. Went back the next day and approached the cashier to calmly explain what had happened. The cashier said he'll just inform his manager. The manager came out and asked me what was the concern. I repeated to explain the situation to him. He asked for a little paper inside the cup and showed me a fine print that indicated that the cup is not spill-proof or leak-proof. He said these cups are not leak-proof (pointing to the cup I got, which lead me to think he was specifying that particular style) and said that it's not a water bottle. I said "I know its not a water bottle, I'm just trying to find a coffee cup that does not spill." He proceeded to ask me in a rude tone "So what do you want? Do you want your money or?" then I responded with "Well I was hoping I could change the item?" And he immediately replied "Do you already know what you want?" I said "no" because I wanted to check with them first before browsing. He said "let me show you which ones are leak-proof" and guided me to their shelf of products and pointed out each of the reusable coffee cups saying they were not spill/leak proof and showed me the drink bottles as the only ones that are spill/leak proof. Afterwards reiterating that the coffee cups are not spill proof and that they are not water bottles. I was left with the option to get a refund.

This could have been dealt better with communicating that all their coffee cup range is not spill/leak-proof. Or that their coffee cups are suitable for a desk or home use or more stable surfaces. Or just having a different tone of voice and facial expression that doesn't fend off customers.

I've been to other Starbucks stores overseas and have never encountered this kind of...

I bought a cup from this store and didn’t ask for a receipt at the time because I wasn’t planning to return it. However, I later realized that the cup they gave me wasn’t new. When I went back to request an exchange, they told me there were no new ones available. So I agreed to a refund instead.

Surprisingly, the store manager — I believe she was an Indian lady — insisted that I couldn’t get a refund without a receipt. The most ridiculous part is that when I pointed out it was their mistake for giving me a used cup, she suddenly said they do have new ones available. Even more absurdly, she later handed me my receipt — so why not just give it to me in the first place so I could proceed with the refund smoothly?

I was polite the entire time, but they kept arguing and raising their voices at me in English, which made the whole experience even more unpleasant. Overall, I found the situation extremely unreasonable and disappointing.

Just to add — this entire situation was also a huge waste of my time. I noticed the problem halfway home, luckily not after I got back, otherwise I would’ve had to make the trip all over again. Even so, I still had to go back to the store just to fix a mistake that wasn’t mine to begin with. The error clearly came from the staff, but somehow they tried to blame me for not asking for a receipt — when the issue was that they gave me a used cup in the first place.

At that point, it became very clear to me that they simply didn’t want to let me return it. But why should I be the one to bear the consequences of their mistake? On top of everything, I had to spend extra time and energy going back and forth. This whole experience left me extremely frustrated and upset. Truly disappointing...