Starbucks — Restaurant in Jersey Village

Subject: Discriminatory Experience at Starbucks – 9209 West Road, Houston

Dear Starbucks Customer Service,

I am writing to express my deep concern and disappointment regarding an unpleasant experience I had today (June 19) at your location at 9209 West Road, Houston, TX. Receipt #: 66449296 Time: 7:06 PM The staff member involved was an African-American female barista.

After ordering my drink, I politely requested a cup of water — something I’ve done many times at this location and others. However, the employee refused and told me that I had to purchase the water. When I asked for clarification, she insisted I must buy a cup of ice water.

This confused me, as there is no such item listed on the in-store menu or on the Starbucks app. I even checked the app again on the spot and could not find any menu item requiring purchase for a simple cup of water.

More troubling than the refusal itself was her attitude — the way she looked at me, spoke to me, and behaved during the interaction made me feel disrespected and targeted, especially as an Asian customer. Her demeanor gave the impression that I was being treated unfairly based on my race. It felt discriminatory and degrading.

No customer should be made to feel this way — especially not at a company like Starbucks, which stands for respect, inclusion, and equality.

I hope Starbucks will take this matter seriously. Please investigate this incident and consider taking steps to ensure that all staff are properly trained to treat every customer with professionalism and fairness, regardless of race...

Eric was a pleasure to deal with this morning, highly professional and extremely competent in his ability to handle my large order of 12 bags of coffee + a couple of drinks and food items.

I really enjoyed his focused, compassionate and warm attitude while he prepared my order.

He made sure that everything was correct, and the baristas preparing mine and my wife's coffee also nailed their landings (our coffee's were delicious).

This is also a great location with very consistent staff and they tend to have the better selection of coffees available.

For instance, I was able to get all of these:

Summatra Decaf Summatra x 2 Espresso Roast Blonde Espresso Roast Komodo Dragon Blend Tribute Blend Siren's Blend Guatemala Antigua Green Apron Blend Sun Dried Ethiopian Guatemala Huehuetenango

Thank you for reading, and if you see this, Eric, thank you for making our day!

Also, whoever answered the phone to give us Eric's name: you have wonderful phone etiquette and we loved your energy. Thank you for helping us so compassionately and for being tremendously friendly over the phone.

Great team...

Terrible attitude from one of the workers. Had to drive back to get a redo of my drink, and the lady that took my order was obviously done. She used such a dead tone and borderline polite words but it was in such an obnoxious way that you could tell she was annoyed or passive aggressive. Gave a little attitude “throw away your drink because we can’t physically take it back”. I mean I didn’t want the drink, that’s why I had to drive back for a redo, but it’s the principle of the matter. She said it in such a RUDE way, and usually Starbucks offers to let you keep the drink sometimes especially when you’re obviously upset. Wish I’d read her name tag, but it’s 9:30 on a Saturday night (hence why I was so upset about having to circle and drive back for a redo).

My advice is to avoid this place. They screwed me over last time too. I ordered a double chocolate chip frap. And after I paid I found out they couldn’t make it correctly because they ran out of the cookie crumble (which is what makes the whole drink) for it. So I had to go in and wait in line to get a refund and then drive to...