Starbucks — Restaurant in Richmond Hill

I have consistently attended this location for nearly five years. Rarely does one get through the drive thru in under 20 minutes. Many locals have caught on to this and attempt to park (often far) and walk in. This place is fine if you are not in a hurry.

THE SKINNY:

1. Usually very friendly staff. In my experience, interactions with staff have been very good—above average.

2. The tiniest piece of land I’ve ever seen a Starbucks location. Parking is ridiculously limited. Often, cars cannot pull in because it’s too tight between the curb and the drive thru. Many park somewhere else and walk (err, hike) to the door. It’s like investors decided to buy a sample of property and accepted a “tiniest-possible-space-for-workflow challenge.”

3. There is almost always a long wait of around 20 in the drive thru. I often remedy this by ordering ahead. Sometimes I still have to wait for the order, but I get it’s like that sometimes.

WHY I AM DONE WITH THIS LOCATION:

Several times, while carving out 20-25 minutes to “grab” coffee in my busy day, I’ve wondered why I keep coming here when there are other local choices?

However, I like a drive thru option (no other local coffee place has that) and awards points, so here I am.

Yet, I’ve been coming here for five years and I really WANT things to improve. I’m also attempting to be balanced and fair in evaluating my personal experiences.

Yesterday, was the last straw for me. I ordered ahead for two items. Said items were ready at 12:24, according to my app. There was a long drive thru line, so I parked and walked up to the door and there was a printed sign stating there would be no inside pick ups that day, and that everyone had to use the drive thru.

So…I went through the drive thru, and at 1:48, after waiting 22 minutes (I arrived there a few minutes after the ready time) to receive my barely-hot latte that was filled maybe all of 2/3rds of my cup.

In fact, to get in line, I passed two gentleman parking a huge truck who went inside Firehouse Subs (next door). They eventually came out maybe 10-12 minutes later carrying a very large order while I was still in line to retrieve what I had ordered nearly 30 minutes prior. :/

I am not one who gets aggravated easily. However, over and over, this establishment inadvertently conveys that management does not seem to care about customer retention—and we will come anyway.

Therefore, I am taking my $2K per year average of investment to a locally-owned establishment. I regret not doing this sooner, and frankly, it was Starbuck’s “convenience” that kept me attending.

Still, I can drive less than a mile east, park, walk inside, order and leave in the time I would be waiting here, all while investing back into the community.

That is all. I’m sorry for the great staff that has to deal with...

I waited in line at the drive through for a good 35 minutes total. I ordered a turkey pesto sandwich (and made sure to ask if they had any in stock as I am aware some locations sell out fast) along with a Tall iced Matcha. When I pulled up to the window I wasn’t greeted for a good 5 minutes, and when I was…I was told that when I had placed the order they had the turkey sandwich but by the time I pulled up they no longer had any…so this leads me to believe that they were neglecting the drive thru line. I understand if it’s busy but telling me what i ordered was there when i ordered it and then all of the sudden gone when i pull up is ridiculous. It was a small order. On top of that i ordered a TALL Matcha…and was given a Venti🙃 I know the girl at the window was flustered and really trying to make it better.. she kept coming to me to say that we’ve been so busy i’m so sorry which is fine and even replaced my sandwich order but after the third time of her apologizing i had to ask how much longer that sandwich was gonna take. That seemed to surprise her a bit and she said one or two minutes. I gave it that much longer but was in somewhat of a hurry to get back on the road so I drove away…Probably the worst drive though experience I’ve ever had. Don’t neglect your drive through line. And don’t make a customer wait at the window for more than 20 minutes just so you can get caught up inside. I’ve worked in coffee I know how this works and yesterday was...

We were excited for Richmond Hill to get its own Starbucks separate from Kroger, but we were very disappointed with what we got.

The problems start before you enter the store. You realize the parking situation is horrible. Most customers for the shopping center park in the nearby church or on the street.

Once we walked in at 4 pm on a Saturday, we noticed that there was empty cups on most tables and trash on the floor. I know places get busy, but it was so bad that I started to clean up the place as we were waiting for our drink.

And we had time to wait. After 14 minutes of waiting we asked for an update on our order. No server seemed will it talk to us, so we hsd to wait an additional 2 minutes to flag down someone. We were told we it already made. My wife, who was standing there there entire time, told the server it was not there. Keep in mind there was no line and we were the only ones waiting at the counter.

So, a server finally made of a replacement drink after a few minutes of arguing. The drink was nothing like we originally ordered. After 20 minutes in the store, we had enough and left.

Out of the dozens of Starbucks we have visited around the world, this was hands down the worst Starbucks we have...