STORY COFFEE — Restaurant in Bellevue

Apparently, this coffee shop and third culture and many others in this state don’t actually serve coffee. I came in over an hour before closing and asked for a drip coffee, only to be told they already stopped making it. When I asked why, the response was: “We close in an hour and 10 minutes.” Then, they doubled down with, “Our employees have lives.” Excuse me? What does that have to do with serving customers? You are literally a coffee shop not a library, not a social club, not a student lounge. If your employees “have lives,” then hire more staff instead of cutting off service just to save a few cents. And to top it off, they suggested I “just go to Starbucks.”

Seriously? Independent coffee shops used to be better than chains, but now they’re literally handing over their customers because they can’t be bothered to serve what they exist to sell. This is exactly why businesses fail bad service, lazy employees, and the attitude that they’re doing you a favor just by existing. And let’s be real their excuse makes zero sense. Drip coffee is literally the easiest thing to make. If they actually cared about “closing procedures,” they’d shut down espresso first, not drip. Espresso requires manual effort, cleaning, and maintenance. Drip coffee? Grind, brew, and keep it warm. It’s effortless compared to pulling shots all day. So what’s the real reason? Cost-cutting and laziness.

That response was beyond absurd. If they say “we have plenty of coffee,” then there’s zero excuse not to make drip. Saying “our employees have lives” is just a weak attempt to justify laziness and cost-cutting. This isn’t even about customer service anymore it’s about entitlement in the workforce. They want the pay, the tips, and the cushy job, but they don’t actually want to do the job. And let’s be real raising the minimum wage has turned into a nightmare. Businesses aren’t taking the hit themselves they’re passing the burden onto both customers (me) and employees. The customer gets worse service, and employees either get fewer hours or an increased workload to make up for it. That’s why states like CA and WA despite their “higher wages” have some of the worst service industry experiences. Higher wages don’t magically make businesses run better they just force cutbacks everywhere else.

So no, I won’t “just go to Starbucks.” I’ll just go somewhere that actually wants...

Zero Stars. Ordered a drip coffee and latte at 7:02… 7:12 drip coffee ready… 7:22 about to be late for work now, latte not started, asks for refund… 7:25 latte refund finalized… now a grumpy latte-less girlfriend… I feel terrible for the guy behind the counter. Not sure the situation here on Monday morning, but very disappointing that a coffee shop couldn’t handle 3 groups of people. 7 AM is also not a proper coffee shop opening time… Bellevue is a lost cause tho with the capitalism… anyways I was looking forward to trying this spot, but unfortunately I’ll be going across the street to the French bakery where they made the latte in a minute and had staff that was able to keep up with the morning “rush”

Like how can a coffee shop be so bad at execution in 2024? And why are simple house plants marked up 50%? With the extra 20 mins of waiting around, I gotta check out the entire shop and man oh man those plants are a horrible deal. Just go over to Home Depot and get 5 plants for the same price as one… I bet this all woulda been better if I had gotten my drip coffee sooner. Being so close to Seattle, you’d hope they’d know not to eff with peoples coffee. Sorry not sorry. And hire more people whoever the owner of this place is. Or there better have been a call out cuz unacceptable and horrible. 🤘

PS after reading others reviews, this place is hella slow but is supposed to be good 😩 hope y’all have a better experience than...

Two visits with different baristas, and both completely incompetent. I had to repeat order multiple times: 16oz iced latte, then iced mocha. That's it - nothing even remotely complicated!

I was the only customer both times, and nothing was in queue, yet it took 5+ minutes to get the drinks.

Both times, the drinks were horrible. The mocha tasted like I was drinking a glass of milk with a the slightest hint of mocha, and no absolutely coffee taste.

I don't blame the barista for this necessarily (although, how hard can it be to take the simplest order possible?); I blame the owner/management. Do you not require any training or quality assurance? What a joke. I'm not even that old, but I remember a time when business owners actually cared about the quality of their products and had some kind of standard.

You just opened. Where is the owner / management? Why aren't they around ensuring a good first impression? I was a customer at Honor for 3+ years. I don't know if Story has new owners or was a rebranding, but I doubt I'll ever return to Story Coffee.

What a complete failure; I won't shed a tear when the...