Caribou Coffee — Restaurant in Apple Valley

Preface: I've never left a review before, but want to point out a bad example of service etiquette. I was terribly flabbergasted this afternoon by the amount of disrespect that was carried out by three of the drive-thru workers (2F, 1M). As I was out trying to claim caribou rewards on behalf of my mother.

Introduction to complaint: To preface, I've never been to a caribou location and rarely get coffee as I treat it as a luxury and not a necessity. And being unfamiliar with their process I made a mistake of overpaying. They left the window so fast as well, that I had no opportunity to make them aware of this sooner. As I forgot to state that I wanted to use a free drink reward and not the points themselves. After making them aware, in response I was met by micro-aggressions and ill-conducted service.

Complaint: No matter how many times I apologized, there was not an inch of reassurance that it was okay to be wrong. As I understand fast-food and service industry work is often frustrating in the idea that the demands the customer makes can be overbearing. However, that does not excuse the opportunity they took to make me feel extremely awful about my concern to utilize the free drink feature. I even looked to make it even easier for them by just ordering another drink instead of reversing the entire process and just making it free (no money back for the other drinks needed).

Even shortly after paying, they left the window unattended about 70% of the interaction and took the time away from the window to speak ill of me and verbalize passive aggressions. This was things like "well! it's not my fault!" mockingly on multiple occasions, sighs, tones of voice, and bodily actions. All within view of me or ear-shot, as I could hear it all; not even having the decency to wait until I left. I made this clear to them after a phone call, and expressed to them my disbelief later.

Actions taken to resolve: I've worked in the industry before, and there's times and places to release stress. I've talked about many customers behind their back, but to do it in front of their face is uncalled for. Especially to someone who's recognized they made your job harder and looked to apologize.

Even if the workers are new hires, they should have common decency. I could not believe the blatant disrespect; it was disgusting behavior and I'll never come back. This will be notified to your customer representatives department and your HR department. As I could imagine by their transparency that this isn't the first time. And I would like to apologize to their manager for the language conducted on my half...

On Wednesday, July 30th at 1:05 PM, I ordered an Iced Berry White Mocha from this Caribou Coffee location through the drive-thru. I was the only vehicle in line, driving a black SUV. Upon receiving my drink, I discovered spit inside of it—something I was able to confirm after inspecting the contents. I am Somali, Black, and Muslim, and I am left horrified, deeply disturbed, and physically ill as a result of what I strongly believe was a targeted hate crime. Let me be clear: someone intentionally spit in my drink. This wasn’t a mistake or a quality issue—this was deliberate, vile, and personal. The fact that an employee felt emboldened enough to do this suggests there are no cameras monitoring the drink prep area and that management has failed to implement basic protections for customers. If your staff is capable of such a disgusting, biohazardous act, then they are clearly not being supervised. Shortly after, I became violently ill, to the point that I required hospital care and was tested for potential infectious exposure. I am still awaiting results. I cannot understate the level of fear, disgust, and rage this has caused. This wasn’t just a personal attack—it was a threat to my health and safety. There is absolutely no justification for this behavior. The employee responsible should be immediately terminated, and if they are not, it sends a loud and dangerous message: that Caribou allows hate, biohazards, and racial targeting to exist behind the counter. To all Black, Somali, Muslim, and POC individuals: I urge you—do not go to this location. In fact, any patron of any background should think twice before trusting their health and safety to a business that employs individuals capable of committing such a repulsive act. It's not worth jeopardizing your health. If it happened to me, it can...

I really like to drink coffee and every morning I learned how to buy coffee in the Caribbean and good service made my mood good, but one situation changed everything.

Once, I decided to order coffee, and I waited and waited and waited, and then I went up myself and asked them to pour me coffee, and only after that did they start doing something that took literally a minute. Angry, I left the coffee shop and got into my car. My coffee tasted very strange, it had a strange aftertaste and seemed to contain a lot of chemicals. But I didn't think much of it because they always change the type of coffee, and it can taste slightly different. Later that night, I started to feel sick and had to go to the hospital. At the hospital, they found problems with my stomach and digestion. According to the doctors, it was some kind of chemical (I don't know what kind).

A couple of weeks later, my family and I went to visit someone, and I met one of the employees who served coffee at that Caribou café. Later that night, when the conversation turned to my poisoning, this employee recognized me and told me that they had accidentally served me coffee with a dishwashing detergent in it. But when they realized what had happened, the employees told the manager, and the manager found my name because he saw the order and my phone number on the bill, but decided not to contact me and not to say anything to me. I was very upset and do not recommend going there. The staff is terrible, and I do not...