Starbucks — Restaurant in Los Alamos

I don’t normally give bad reviews, even when service is lacking. I understand that there are staff shortages and those working can get overwhelmed sometimes. But I think this time I need a place to vent about my continuous poor experience this store had to offer. I have spent more than 1 hour waiting for a drink after ordering ahead. I usually use the app to order ahead, but for two days in a row, I had my time wasted here when there wasn’t a long line ahead of me. On the first day, I ordered ahead in the app and went through the drive thru. For whatever reason, the car in front of me had to wait for an extended period of time before having their order taken at the drive thru. There were no cars in front of them. I waited 30 minutes, trapped in the drive thru. The order was eventually taken and I was able to get my one drink. Normally I’m okay with this.

But on the second day (which was today), I ordered ahead on the app and the drive thru was empty. I was informed that the drink I ordered wasn’t available and they offered a substitute drink instead. I accepted and went up to the window, where they instructed me to park at the front and they would bring my drink to me. I waited 20 minutes before going inside to grab the drink myself. To the staff’s credit, they attempted to reconcile their mistake, but I was already too far gone. I just took my drink and left before embarrassing myself due to the frustration I felt with them. I was already angry at this point for wasting an hour of my life at this store for two drinks I can make at home for cheap and much faster. If you can’t offer convenience for the price, why bother?

That said, I know we are all human and make mistakes from time to time. But this really caused a tipping point in me to have to write...

It’s incredible how many terrible experiences I’ve had here. My fault for continuing to give them a chance I guess. Today, for example in the drive through I said “Can I get a triple espresso shaken on ice with half and half and 2 pumps of sugar free vanilla?” And was responded to with “Wait what!?” And I said “it’s a custom coffee order” and she said “I heard you I just don’t understand what you want.” Like? Hello? What the helly? Don’t you work at a coffee shop? So I repeated it and she responded with more confusion. So I said “Nevermind just 3 shots of espresso iced with half and half and 2 pumps of sugar vanilla” and I get to the window and now I’m more annoyed because I don’t want to pay nearly $10 for the wrong thing and I order that drink often from other Starbucks that hire literate people and it already looked completely wrong with no ice. So I asked her if I could look at the label and once again repeated the interaction her and I just had and she said “They made you what you ordered”. So I told her I didn’t want the drink and I’d be writing a review and calling the manager (Karen move, I get it but this isn’t a one time thing, it’s happened too many times. It’s Starbucks not rocket science). So here’s the review. And I tried calling and of course no one answered. Just go...

I have no idea what sort of customer service skills they look for when hiring but this place has none. I was not greeted at all despite saying hello and smiling at the counter, and after standing in front of the register for a few moments being stared at all I got was a snide "Do you want something?". Both the workers I interacted with (2 females) had attitude problems and were rude/wanted nothing to do with me. I was interrupting their phone time. Tea and brownie were fine, but no milk/half and half at the counter area to personalize, it was very dirty and had not been cleaned. I stayed to do some work and the internet was fast which was the only saving grace because at the shift change an incredibly loud young man came in to work and was yelling to friends that came in every few minutes, loudly enough I could hear him through my headphones and another customer asked me if it was rude to ask him to be quiet... we both ended up leaving as the yelling and loudness went on for over an hour. Just zero customer service, I won't be returning while I am working in the area...