Starbucks — Restaurant in Pigeon Forge

I went to get my mobile order this morning half an hour after placing. It was an in-store pickup, but the drive thru was empty and with it having snowed outside, I wanted to take the convenient route and just pick it up at the drive thru. When I pulled into the drive thru, nobody said anything to me. I waited for 5 minutes. Another car pulled in behind me, then another. Finally, I decided to just go to the window, where I saw two employees with their backs turned working at the bar. One turned to look at me, then hurried and turned away, ignoring me. At this point, I’m confused, because the app and website clearly state that this location is open. It’s 7:30am. A lady walks by, she seems to be the one in charge. When she notices me; she shakes her head no and gestures for me to leave. I’m shocked. I shake my head yes, and grab my phone mouthing “mobile order”. I’m just trying to get my coffee and go to work! She opens the window and says “We’re closed” to my confusion. I say, “What do you mean? I placed a mobile order half an hour ago. Y’all are all here” and I gesture to the others. “No, we’re trying to get everything up and running. I just walked in 15 minutes ago so I don’t know what to tell you” she huffs. I’m completely baffled. How am I paying for a drink and now being told I can’t have it? Everything online clearly says this location is open! I ask “So I can’t have my drink? Y’all don’t have it?” and she sighs loudly “What’s your name? What did you have?”. When I tell her, she interrupts and says “Yes I can’t do that drink, my espresso machine isn’t up” and just stares at me. No apology, no solution. I’m angry now, and say “What do you want me to do then, come back?” and she nods “Yea if you want”. So much attitude and so little explanation as to why this is happening. I’m so confused, angry and frustrated. I don’t know what to do, so I drive off and go to work. After waiting another half hour, I go back to the Starbucks to find that they have closed the store and are only open for the drive thru, which now has about 9 cars in a line that is not moving. So, I wait for another half hour in line for my coffee drink. When I receive it; I’m given no apology, nothing. Just a “here’s your straw, have a good day”. I wish I could say this experience is new, but it’s not: Unfortunately, this Starbucks has had mobile order issues before, selling drinks and then only being open to a drive thru that doesn’t move while the store is shut down. I can’t understand how this keeps happening; and how I was treated so poorly today without being offered anything, not even an apology. It’s safe to say that this experience will be keeping me from visiting this location anytime soon. I’d rather drive another 15 minutes to the one on Hwy 66 than be treated so...

They kicked us out into the pouring rain.

I don't like leaving bad reviews, but what they did to us yesterday is very messed up.

My wife and I were getting our car detailed and decided to go to this Starbucks; it was one of my favorite hangout spots in Pigeon Forge. We ordered some coffee and something to eat and sat outside for a few minutes until a storm hit. It's probably about 3pm.

So we dive into the store, and we see one of their big umbrellas they use for outside seating blow away into the parking lot towards some parked cars. We ran out and grabbed the umbrella for them and brought it back inside. A few of the workers walked up to the umbrella, looked at it, and mumbled to each other that it blew away, mentioned that we ran out, grabbed it, and then walked away.

They didn't say thank you, which I thought was odd but ok. Maybe they were busy, and I was more concerned with the umbrella damaging one of the cars in the parking lot (it's a pretty hefty umbrella) and wasn't expecting a ticker-tape parade. But I also wasn't expecting one of the girls that worked there to walk up to us just as the storm was getting worse and tell us we had to leave the store.

The reason is that there were too many people inside. Between my wife and I, they had five customers in the store. We were wearing our little masks and were standing 6 feet away from everyone, which is pretty easy to do because their lobby is pretty big.

I told the lady that it's storming outside and we don't have our car because it's getting detailed. She insisted that we leave. Usually, I would have been a little pushier, but one of the five customers in the store was a police officer, and I didn't see it ending well for us if I got into an argument with her.

So they kicked us out into the pouring rain. We went across the street to the Marble Slab, and they were a lot nicer about our situation, so we had some ice-cream and hung out there until the storm passed.

I get they have regulations for how many people can be in the store right now, but letting us hang out for 5 minutes after we bought merchandise and grabbed their umbrella, would have been the kind and intelligent thing to do. It's not illegal for us to stay in the store, and they could have just ignored us.

As I mentioned earlier, this was one of my favorite spots in the Pigeon Forge to hang out, but I can never step foot in this Starbucks again after being treated this way. They don't care obviously, or else they wouldn't have kicked us out while it was raining lol

So anyway, don't go here. There are other coffee...

Let me start with, they are busy. I get it. Lots of drinks coming in during the morning rush. What I don’t get is the attitudes. Most of the employees won’t make eye contact when setting down a completed drink, so if you need something because your $8.53 coffee isn’t quite right… you have to call for them… something like, “excuse me.” Again, I get it. They are busy. However, when you do, they are visibly annoyed. 1st day I ordered my wife an iced brown sugar shaken espresso with oat milk. As I’ve done no less than 50 times before. I got it and it was super dark. There was very little oat milk. So, no problem, I captured the baristas attention (politely may I add). She was obviously not happy but did very quickly dump a very small amount of oatmilk in a cup and placed it on the counter in front of me. I said thank you and then added it. Swirled it all up and well, still really dark. I broke the cardinal rule and asked for more please. She told me, “no, I can’t! 4 oz 4 oz is all I’m allowed in to give.” I said, well I order these all the time and they are never this dark. She did not respond went back to what she was doing. I continued to stand there and then after approximately 30 seconds grabbed another cup and added oat milk and put it down in front of me with a scowl. Um, ok. Thank you. So that was a pleasant experience. So much so that I almost didn’t order from them again the next day. However, I know my wife enjoys that drink so I ordered another one. Today’s drink was better made but was still a little dark. So I asked one of the people behind the counter for a bit more. A different person this time. She scoffed back and said, “yeah, but it’s gonna a be a min. I’m in the middle of something”. I said, “no worries, you’re fine.” When she was done with her task she came over filled a bit into a cup and slid it at me. I said, “thank you”. No response. No “here you go” no service with a smile from anyone. Honestly, that place needs a culture change. I buy Starbucks almost every day. I’ve been to dozens and dozens of locations. I’ve just never dealt with staff that are so unfriendly. Even more shockingly, we are in Pigeon Forge TN. Every restaurant, attraction, etc.. we’ve gone people are super friendly and helpful,...