Starbucks — Restaurant in Albuquerque

I've been frequenting Starbucks for decades, all over California and here in New Mexico. I appreciate the business model, which appears to be rooted in a really high end European cafe sensibility. In addition to the coffees and snacks, I sometimes buy bags of beans to stock my kitchen. Obviously, I am a fan.

But this location struggles to deliver a consistent product. Judging from the types of mistakes made frequently, I suspect they probably have a high turnover rate. Especially now, during Covid, I rather think it is a miracle that this place stays open at all. I will say that the staff has always been super friendly and eager to please, something I really appreciate.

First of all, this location is plagued with access issues and always has been, but ever since the construction project started on the northwest corner of Broadway and Lomas, it has been an absolute nightmare. It took me a minute of driving around to figure out how to get into the parking lot and to the drive-through. A couple of the streets are blocked and there are construction vehicles everywhere. It isn't Starbucks' fault that they are so hard to access, but it is an issue. They're the closest Starbucks to my house, so this is the one I frequent.

Today, I placed an order for a grande mocha with whole milk, extra hot, with an extra pump of chocolate syrup (my typical order) and a chicken and bacon panini sandwich to go with it. My order was repeated back to me twice: once at the speaker of the menu board and again when I got to the window to pay for it.

What I RECEIVED, however, was a grande mocha without whipped cream. NOT my order at all. The sandwich was half filled with shavings of chicken and fatty undercooked bacon. Fortunately, I was taking the sandwich home with me, so I just took the sandwich apart and popped the bacon into a pan and cooked it the rest of the way, then put it back in the sandwich. The flavor was surprisingly very very good. But I REALLY missed getting the mocha I had ordered and I missed the whipped cream that I never asked to be omitted. Maybe they gave me someone else's coffee order.

I paid $12 and change for an incorrect order. I don't mind paying a premium price for a premium product, but that is not what I got today, so I feel cheated.

If we weren't going through a pandemic, I would probably give 2 stars for today's fiasco. I'm just adding a star to most of my reviews, in consideration of the difficulty of staying in business during Covid, which is what I did here. They get 3 stars for...

Placed my online order at at 8:27 am. Said see you soon, so I drove over. Place was packed and my order wasn't ready (8:34) so I stood there and waited. At 8 :41 I was finally able to get someone attention to ask what was taking so long. He said they must not have got my order but if I followed him to the register he'd get me taken care of. He verified my order on my phone, said he was going to upside the drinks (2) and get me out of there. So I waited thinking he was making then. (He said he was taking care of me) I didn't get my drinks because they took care of EVERY order that had in front of when he upsides upsized me 1st. Peeole were in and out while while stood there. I finally walked out at 8:53 when I had to be somewhere by 9:30. It was the worst experience EVER. Those people were so busy talking among themselves that they never even looked up when a customer tried to get their attention . I wasn't the only one waiting. One lady actually reached across the waiting area counter at someone and had to raise her voice to the tell them they were making her order wrong!!! I'll continue to shop Starbucks but not this location. Driving the extra few minutes to Washington is worth the time to avoid the aggravation of this location! ( NOT myself 1st bad experience here, but definitely the worst) and the store was so dirty too.! I usually...

I go to this Starbucks A LOT (probably because it’s the only one with a drive-through in the downtown area), and, to be fair, even though their drive-through is very difficult to get into an out of, the service is always fast and great!

In years past, before the pandemic, I even enjoyed hanging out in the lobby.

However, today I had the worst Starbucks hot drink I’ve probably ever had. Every once in a while I’ll order an Americano and it’ll be like murky hot water… I can barely taste the coffee. this typically happens when the barista making the drink doesn’t look at my instructions ahead of time and fills it to the top with water. I like heavy soy and so they need to leave about an inch of room at the top to put the soy milk in. If they fill it up with too much water they just throw some out and I think it’s the same thing but it’s not it waters it down like crazy…

Today, I keep taking a sip, putting it down for a few minutes, and taking another sip… waiting for the flavor to come. There’s no flavor. Jist none! all I can taste is the slight sweetness of soy milk. It’s like somebody made a Venti Americano with a single shot and then poured 2/3 of it out and added my soymilk. Just nothing. Nada!

This is not in the Starbucks tradition! I just hate making a special trip to Starbucks and then being...