As beautiful as the store is, I'm sorry to say but the service was absolutely horrendous. I visited the store as it's always been on my bucket list, and was expecting a wonderful experience like what the others have said. Along with my drinks, I bought 2 Starbucks Cards which have 1,000円 in each of them.

After I finished my drinks, I wanted to get a limited Kyoto Starbucks Cup and so I did, and wanted to pay using one of the Starbucks Cards I bought earlier on. After trying many times, the payment still failed and the staff had no idea why and we also had troubles communicating due to the language barrier. Eventually, the store manager came over to check on the situation and found out that my Starbucks Card did not have the 1,000円 charged in it because of their own system network errors, although I've already paid for it.

So, to figure out on how to solve the situation, they told me to take a sit. After 30 minutes, 45 minutes, and then 1 hour, they still haven't got back to me. I was already very patient with them and I did not confront them even when it was already 1 hour. As a tourist, time is very precious and moreover, I was in my rental kimono!! Which means that I'm seriously wasting both my time and money as I waited for their answer which seemed to never come.

I couldn't wait any longer after 1 hour++ and so I finally asked them whether they were done and whether I could just leave yet, but they still weren't done. I got frustrated and told them to just refund me the 1,000円 that I paid for nothing and just let me leave. They did, and still took another 10 minutes or so to do that.

In conclusion, what I wanted to say is, why didn't the store manager just give me a simple refund in the first place instead of letting me wait for 1 hour++ without an answer?... I'm very disappointed and upset about my visit, although the drinks and atmosphere were amazing. After my holiday in Japan, I wanted to write in a feedback to Starbucks to see if there was anything they could do to help me. They took a long time to get back to me, just to tell me that they are not accepting ANY email feedbacks for Starbucks Japan and I was told to call them, which didn't make any sense.

Please work on your system, and feedback to the Kyoto Store properly so they wouldn't continue to waste a customer's time like this. Because of the 1 hour++ wait, I missed out on going several landmarks I wanted to visit. To be honest, I was so upset I could really cry as it was my first time travelling after so many years.