Caribou Coffee — Restaurant in Fort Snelling Unorganized Territory

Long rant here. By far the worst Caribou location I’ve visited, and I am a Caribou fanatic. I mobile ordered while waiting for my baggage on the carousel, thinking it would be ready by the time I retrieved my bag because there was only 1 other person waiting for their beverage at the end of the bar and nobody in line. I ordered at 3:09pm. I walked over and 2 people were now waiting for their drinks and 1 barista was watching a movie with his airpods in and his phone on the counter, moving slower than molasses and taking breaks to look at his phone screen. After we all stood there for a bit 1 drink was finally ready. Again, nobody in line.. 1 barista half working, and 2 others wandering around behind the counter? The other guy waiting had been there since I walked over from the luggage carousel. I asked if he mobile ordered and he said nope, I ordered at the counter. Another 5 minutes goes by and he finally gets his 2 drinks. One employee is now helping a few people order at the counter while the barista again is just standing. I’m trying to get his attention and he won’t look. He makes 2 drinks for the people who had ordered in line, VERY slowly. One lady waiting turns to me and says “I’d yell at them. That’s gotta be the least energetic lady ever” about one of the other employees who took about 10 minutes to stir her drink that she was waiting for. Finally the other employee comes over and I said excuse me? I had a mobile order 15 minutes ago, did it go through? I gave him my name and he said he’d check. He goes yep! It’s here! and walks away. The barista grabs the sticker that printed for it, stares at it before crumpling it up and tossing it in the garbage! He makes eye contact with me and goes “we’re out of __” and is about to turn around and just not help me at all, when I said okay i’ll have the other flavor instead then?? He grabs a cup, drops it into the ice bin, picks it back up and proceeds to use it to scoop basically an entire cup of ice into it. (This is totally wrong and disgusting, you add ice at the end of the drink, and use a SCOOP to do it. Not a grubby cup!) Not to mention wearing basketball shorts and a sports tshirt? Caribou has a dress code for all employees but apparently that doesn’t apply here. WHAT are we doing??? I worked at a very fast paced Caribou in another location and therefore am appalled at this one. When did everyone get so lazy? And I finally got my pre-ordered drink at about 3:30! Mind you it wasn’t even coffee. It was an energy drink that literally requires water, 2 syrups and...

I have been a Caribou customer since Caribou opened, so that's thirty plus years now....and every time I fly (which is fairly often) I use my rewards since the price at the airport is higher.

Today, I went to fly out of MSP terminal 2 and was ordering with my 773 rewards points when the Caribou employee told me that I had no points. Her screen showed nothing, but my app showed my points.

She said.... There are no points. I said, I HAVE points and showed her my app. I asked her how was it possible that the system wasn't registering that I have points? And I showed her again and was telling her .... "You can SEE them in my app."

She was basically telling me that I had to pay for my latte. She was not trying to resolve anything but just kept telling me that I had no points.

This went on for 5 or 6 minutes... Literally back and forth about 5 times (forehead smack here) until I called customer service in BC.

The woman at corporate was lovely and said I needed to "redeem" my chosen reward IN the app for it to be used, but in all the times I've gone to that exact same airport location, I have NEVER done that....

All that to say that I think the EMPLOYEE who works at the Caribou should know how to do that.

Over the last 30 years, I have had a couple issues at Caribou, but I have never left a negative review.... But since I got an email asking, I think it's important that this shouldn't happen to anyone else.

I'm not sure what happened with the system not showing my points, but certainly the person working at Caribou should know how a customer can redeem...

It’s hard to say that I’m extremely disappointed in the easily avoidable mistakes that I witnessed at this caribou. As someone who has worked in a busy caribou store, I understand the rush and frustrations that come with the fast pace. Although, it doesn’t save any time not caring if drinks are made properly, if anything it wastes time due to customers not being happy and wanting it remade or asking for a whole new drink. I watched the one woman make my medium energy drink, she pumps in 8 pumps of flavor over the ice, dumps in the lemonade without measuring and then tops with sparkling water causing all the ice to melt. Maybe it’s the water gun, but my drink was also not sparkling/tasted very flat. Before I got my drink, another customer asked if they had drink carriers and the same lady rudely says “no. we don’t have carriers.” And quickly disregards them. Right after that, another customer came to get his mobile order, I’m not sure what was wrong but he had two cups of iced tea, said he can’t carry both and only took one. The second lady behind the bar takes his left cup and dumps the tea back into the big pitcher after the customer already touched it. The only good things I experienced here was the cashier (I believe her name was Kimbee, she was the only one wearing a name tag). She greeted me, wished me a good day and gave me a smile. Honestly she looked kinda miserable working with the three other women...