Starbucks — Restaurant in Scottsdale

We've stopped at this location on several occasions in the past, as it is pretty much the last Starbucks on our way out of town. Usually it's just a so-so experience — good drinks and adequate service, but hectic and unpleasant from the overcrowded mall parking lot to the tiny, crowded store itself.

Today though, I had a very unpleasant and incredibly un-Starbucks-like experience I had to share. My wife has a rather complicated favorite tea recipe that she has to explain in some detail to the barista every time. One of the ingredients is "lemonade CONCENTRATE." Every time, she specifies that she does not want the diluted lemonade because it waters down the drink. At other locations, they have listened patiently if not always cheerfully to the ingredient list, jotting it all down, and the drink is almost always prepared perfectly.

On this occasion, I sensed the cashier taking the order was having some difficulty entering this information into the computer, so I verified it with her before paying. She confirmed that, yes, she had clearly and accurately marked the drink cup as instructed. Concentrate, yep, got it!

Now, the barista, who was clearly having a bad day to begin with, took over, slapping the drink together like she was being paid by the ounce and banging it down on the counter like she had just roped a calf. Everything about the drink was wrong in one way or another, but my wife also mentioned that she had seen the barista put in diluted lemonade instead of concentrate. We looked at the computer-printed label, and sure enough, it said "lemonade" — nothing about concentrate.

So, no big deal, because this is Starbucks, right? You're not satisfied with your drink, they remake it for you. Cheerfully. That's at least part of the reason you're paying five bucks for a flipping cup of iced tea, right? Because you're getting outstanding customer service.

Well, not this time. The barista gets the manager, and the manager lays down the law. "We can't do that," he says. Apparently, if some of the concentrate is used without being diluted first, it throws the universe's delicate lemonade/water balance completely out of whack. So he REFUSES to do it. He refuses to remake the drink or let anyone else remake the drink the way we requested it — the way we paid for it to be made.

Now, my wife is no pushover, especially when she's paying five bucks for a cup of iced tea, so she informs him that at least a dozen other locations have made the drink as requested, with no congressional oversight or military action required. His response was that he was the manager of the store, and not only would he not authorize this unorthodox dispensing of lemonade concentrate, he was going to CALL THE OTHER STORES to tell them they shouldn't do it either. At last, he had a mission in life!

In the end, he issued a refund and sent us on our way, never to return. We continued east on Shea and ended up at the Starbucks inside the Fountain Hills Target. I wasn't optimistic, but in fact it was a dramatically superior experience in every way, from the comparatively spacious seating area to the pleasant and attentive staff — Target employees, mind you — who outclassed the Starbucks crew in every way. The drink was made to perfection, WITH lemonade concentrate, without so much as a raised eyebrow.

My wife and I are ten-year gold card members who have visited no fewer than two dozen Starbucks locations in Arizona alone, plus dozens more all over the Southwest, but we will never visit the 92nd St & Shea location again under any circumstances. When Target outshines you in basic customer service like this, you need to send your staff and manager all the way back through barista basic training and make them retake the Starbucks Experience training weekly until they...

Waited almost 20 minutes for a frappacino! I don't blame the staff, I blame the management. Happy hour started today, they should have had more people working to cover the extra business it brought in! Only one poor girl having to make ALL the frapps by herself? Ludicrous when the happy hour only covered frapps! Other baristas were busy with their areas and couldn't pitch in. I got half my order almost 15 minutes before the other half and people who didn't take advantage of the happy hour received their beverages before those of us that were stupid enough to take advantage of happy hour.

Drive thru as usual was chaotic, people trying to get in from all directions. But it did seem to move faster than the line inside!

This location is just too busy without the space or staff to accommodate customers comfortably or quickly during busy times (before work, lunch time, after school, especially during specials, etc.). It's too bad since it's a convenient location.

I had stopped going when they kept running out of almond milk and stopped in when a friend of mine mentioned happy hour. Sorry to say, I'm going to look for another location to go to if it's...

This is a great Starbucks location. It is always clean and well-kept and has indoor seating as well as outdoor seating with misters during the hot months. During the week, it can be very hard to get a spot to sit inside, so do keep that in mind if you want to come here to work. Additionally, the indoor seating does not include any of those comfy armchairs you might see at some locations, but rather just wood chairs. It’s fine, but it’s just not as welcoming. But if you end up outside, the misters really do help keep you cool. One issue with the misters, though, is some of them drip rather than “mist” and I think they need to be adjusted. Anyway, there is a great variety of café/bakery items at this store too and my drink always...