Starbucks Coffee — Restaurant in Portsmouth

Interesting to see someone else recently mention snarky staff. First time visiting this particular branch but I’m a Starbucks regular (gold card) across the country. I ordered ahead on the app as usual, but got delayed in traffic. Every other Starbucks makes the drink and then leaves it on the counter for you to quickly grab if you’re not already there. This is consistently the same at every Starbucks I’ve visited, whether it be city centre, drive through, service station etc., and it makes ordering ahead on the app a really convenient and quick option. We arrived later than the estimated wait time and they were busy, a queue at the till and people waiting at the pick up counter. No sign of our drinks though and the staff were all occupied. When it was finally our turn a member of staff asked whether we were waiting for something. I advised we had a mobile order and was told with the snarkiest attitude ‘well you need to tell us when you arrive otherwise we don’t know you are here’. So unnecessarily rude and snarky, when every other Starbucks leaves app orders on the pick up counter for collection - if this one works differently, it needs a sign up to advise that’s the case. I did inform her that every other Starbucks works differently but I doubt she cared. Looking at the disinterested look on all of the staffs faces, I suspect morale is an issue here, so why would they make the experience easy for the customers. Even if we had tried to announce our arrival, it would have been difficult to get anyone’s attention as they were all busy. Avoid if you’re using the app, if they’re busy you’ll wind up waiting longer than if you’d just waited in the queue to pay, and you’ll probably be lectured. A shame I won’t return as they actually made a really...

Second time using the drive thru today - first time was in the afternoon and ordered a medium (regular) caramelised macadamia latte. All good, got charged £4.73, service was great too.

5 hours later I go back through the drive thru and order the EXACT same thing - medium (regular) caramelised macadamia latte. First off they gave me oat milk when I didn't ask for this so I had to get it remade (absolutely not an issue), but I then realised they'd charged me £5.51.

The price went up by 78p?? For the exact same drink? 5 hours later?

I questioned this and apparently the price hadn't gone up and I was wrong. Despite currently looking at my bank account. Maybe I should have gone to Specsavers. Oh wait, I DO use Specsavers. So it can't be that 🤔

After some research, I'm pretty sure I was charged for a Venti, but despite being charged this, I was still given a regular size drink. So either way, I was charged more than I should have been for what I ordered.

If inflation is going up by 78p per 5 hours these days, someone let me know so I can jump ship NOW and go live in the rainforest where I can just make my own coffee...

Every time I use this Starbucks drive thru I get disappointed. I used this one after the end of the first lockdown, was so looking forward to my first Frappuccino again, but it was very watery. Decided to give it a go again today as I was in the area and again the same issue with it being watery. You can see in the picture that the liquid has sank to the bottom and left plain ice at the top, this happened almost instantly after getting it. Never had an issue with any other Starbucks, I had the same Java Chip at the A3 Liphook Starbucks a couple of months ago and it was amazing! Not sure what keeps going wrong, as you would think it would be a standard way of making them across all stores. The staff were friendly and cheery though, there was a long queue at the drive thru, so maybe they have been made in a rush, they had also run out of cream, so might have added to the watery taste. Over £4 is a lot to be spending on a subpar drink...