If there was a minus star, I would have given it! Starbucks used to be my ABSOLUTE FAVOURITE PLACE EVER & favourite coffee in the world. I've come to witness severe deterioration in the quality of its coffee as well as lack of service across the years & particularly so in the last 2 years. Every branch is now super dirty & when I ask the workers to either clean the loo (in MerryLand Branch) or the table, they acquiesce to do it. Moreover, they train them to act like clowns over the counter being overly fake friendly & exceeding their limits at times. They never watch for hygiene & don't wear gloves when preparing any drinks. I have told off a worker once (at Starbucks in front of La Coste at City Stars) who was holding the cups from the inside of the cup with all his fingers inside the paper cup before filling it. God knows when was the last time he sneezed or washed his hands. When I asked him why he's not wearing gloves, he said he doesn't need to & that they are short in gloves!!!!!! They were also short in paper cup sleeves today. They are always in short of something, most of all cleanliness. Now, today, I walked into the newest branch in City Stars next to H&M. It was super crowded with only one table available so I did my normal habit of reserving my table with one bottle of Badoit water until I place my order which normally includes my regular Badoit water bottle. Now, I went back to my table & waited until the coffee was prepared. Because of how crowded the place was, I was afraid to leave my table in order not to lose my seat particularly because people had already asked me for all the extra chairs on my table.(I was alone so I gladly agreed). At the same moment a child sitting at the table next to mine broke a glass bottle of juice which spread all around my table with the broken glass. Amidst this chaos, I forgot to put back my extra Badoit bottle which still laid on my table untouched of course. I hadn't forgotten about it & thought of immediately putting it back when my latté (which was taking forever to be prepared) was ready. At that moment, one of the staff members came to me frowning asking me why I have two bottles. I was explaining to him that I only used the other bottle to reserve my seat. He didn't wait for me to explain & rudely took the extra bottle & walked away without hearing my finish my sentence! That same exact member of staff was equally rude to me when as I was placing my order, I asked him to kindly clean it as it was super dirty with a liquid spilled on it. He went to do it & the Badoit bottle was still on my table then reserving my seat. He did a very careless job cleaning the table only wiping the spilled drink leaving the rest of the table disgusting. I decided not to fuss about it. But I was so angry by the whole experience so far. I had no energy to fight so I decided to let it go. Then my latté was FINALLY ready. I went to pick it up running back to the table. With my first anticipated sip, I felt that I was drinking hot milk with zero coffee. Second sip was exactly the same. I went back to a new guy now to complain after having had enough with Starbucks altogether. I asked him why my latté tasted like hot milk. He said that I am meant to ask for a double shot which is around 20 pounds extra in price than the regular latté!! I said that I have been drinking Starbucks coffee around the world for over 13 years & it has never tasted as bad. To my greatest surprise he told me that they have a new policy in Starbucks Egypt to place half the amount of the coffee they used to put before in every cup as instructed by the management. I was so angered by this audacious statement so I told him that it is absurd since they have increased their prices almost by three times in the last few years. Today my order was a small Latté (sorry "hot milk"), the micro chocolate chip they have by the cashier for EGP 20 WITHOUT TAXES & the "scandalous" bottle of Badoit. I paid EGP 75 for such a stupid order. They now trap u with questions like "would u like extra this & that?'' Only to RIP U...
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