Starbucks — Restaurant in Vancouver

tl;dr: Bring back the damn self-service milk/sugar/cream station already. Telling the barista how much milk and sugar I want sucks and wastes everyone's time

During the pandemic, Starbucks' policy of removing the milk/cream/sugar self-service bar, that is standard in almost every other coffee shop in North America, was a necessary inconvenience for the sake of public health. Their decision to continue that policy post-Covid, however, is nothing short of baffling, senseless, and deleterious to the quality of their experience.

Coffee, or tea, is something that most regular drinkers like a particular way, and most people dont want to be the annoying, picky customer, but if you want it right, you can either do it yourself, or waste everyone's time and make the entire experience awkward by micromanaging the barista on how much milk, sugar, cream, or honey you might want. Starbucks has decided to remove the first option, and make everybody either pick the latter route, or just suck it up and drink an unpleasant beverage.

I drink tea. At home, or any other coffee shop, I can wait a few minutes for it to steep, then add the very particular amount of honey and milk that I enjoy. At Starbucks, however, I must tell the barista, with 3 people in line behind me, that I want just a little bit of honey, and about 2 centimetres of milk. He can't wait around for 3 minutes for the tea to steep, so he adds the honey and milk immediately, thus dropping the temperature of the tea by 20 degrees and largely halting the steeping process. He inevitably adds too much honey, as he understandably doesnt have the time to ask me to describe exactly how much I mean by "a little bit".

By the end of this process, I feel rude and uncomfortable for holding up the line, but it all seems to be for naught, as I'm left with a cup of warm, overly-sweet, slightly tea-flavoured milk-water. Its an awful experience, and Starbucks' awful policy is entirely to blame.

On the other factors: service was polite, vibe was okay, very busy and not super clean but still...

The “ manager” has an attitude problem. I noticed the washroom was locked and asked with a smile if I can use it before I make a purchase and her response was rude cold and snarky. She looked me up and down, and said “ you need to pay first”. There is no reason to degrade a customer for the way they dress or look. I had planned to use the washroom, and sit and enjoy my coffee while I waited for my phone to get fixed. I didn’t want to be in the washroom and my name be called multiple times and my drink be touched by some strangers. I completely understand people misuse the washroom and a new policy is set in place and it should only be for customers. But the way this is being executed is not the way. I’ve worked in HR and customer service. She needs to be reassessed as she is literally the face of this Starbucks location. She looks like she hates her life. Keep it up and you will keep losing customers. Oh and the cherry on top my favourite drink tasted like literal water. I...

As a matter of fact, I was with him at the time, and I felt the same way—Hito came off as kind of rude. The reason I felt that way is because he didn’t greet me, even when I was standing right at the counter trying to order coffee.

What really got to us is that he said “Hi” and “How are you?” to a White customer right before us… 😅 That honestly made us feel pretty exasperated.

I know we’re Asian—but we’re all human beings. I’m not asking him to be super friendly or anything. All I wanted was a simple “Hi.” That’s it. 😩

Suffice it to say, his attitude left a lot to be desired. I just hope he treats other Asian customers a bit better moving forward.

For now, the last thing I want to do is go back...