Starbucks op-ed nails them for getting worse, 11-minute wait times, and cutesy notes on the cups

A loyal Starbucks customer penned an op-ed torching the company’s efforts to turn things around, saying the true problem is being flat-out ignored.

CEO Brian Niccol is optimistic that a rebrand will help restore the company’s reputation and return to the pleasant, soothing experience people crave from their favorite coffeehouse. But for some loyal customers like New York Post columnist Steve Cuozzo, the problems extend beyond sluggish baristas and unbearable drive-thru lines.

“If Starbucks actually has bosses, they’re in their offices counting coffee beans,” he writes in his latest piece.

“The absence of old-school management – i.e., ‘You do this, you don’t do that’ – is obvious to a guy like me who’s enjoyed Starbucks coffee since they opened in my Upper East Side building thirty years ago. And it gets worse every year,” he continues. “Many branches are filthy. My friend found Starbucks at Lexington Avenue and East 77th Street as gross as the subway station next door.”

He goes on to say that his friend called the location “disgusting,” revealing that it had “mounds of malodorous garbage filled the bathroom” and “overflowing trash bins at the ‘condiment’ counter.” To add insult to injury, they even gave him the wrong drink.

“I’m ready to quit Starbucks for another reason too – the same reason millions of other java junkies are doing it,” Cuozzo admitted. “Namely, endless waits for even the simplest products. It can take half a lifetime to get a no-frills cappuccino.”

Worse, the “improvements” that Niccol has bragged about making are actually slowing down the process further and adding to customers’ frustrations.

Although he said they got rid of a few unpopular drinks, categories continue to mushroom, baffling customers and frustrating servers.

“This is so unfair,” a young woman, clearly a Starbucks rookie, giggled as she struggled to decipher lists of “coffeehouse classics,” cold coffee and espresso, tea lattes, pumpkin beverages, pecan beverages, “refresher” beverages” and “blended cappuccinos.”

I could do laundry in the time it took her and her girlfriends to decide and communicate their order to the poor guy behind the counter.

Even services that are supposed to expedite the ordering process, such as the app and the Starbucks card, cause time-wasting issues.

“They require long discussions and repeated trial-and-error to make the damn things work,” Cuozzo wrote. “Which is why I pay in old-fashioned cash – even though some employees recoil in terror from printed currency and struggle to make change.”

And as for the new rule about writing “personal messages” on cups to make customers feel special? Well, the baristas don’t seem to be taking it very seriously.

“Most baristas wisely ignore it. When I asked one why she didn’t scribble something warm and fuzzy, she cheerfully passed the buck to a fellow barista.  ‘I’m giving it to you, but I didn’t make it – he did,’ she said with a wink,” the columnist recalls.

All of the niceties and rules tend to fall to the wayside when it takes an Olympic feat just to mix up a drink, Cuozzo continues.

“A sugar-and-ice bomb called Strawberry Matcha Strato Frappucino – a coffee-less concoction that packs 300 calories and 36 grams of sugar in just twelve ounces – requires two different blenders and six ingredients to make, one overwhelmed barista told the New York Times,” he says. “Mine took just three minutes at a slow time. But earlier, when the place was busier, a colleague of mine waited eleven minutes at the same West 48th Street location for iced green tea lemonade.”

Ultimately, the lack of management presence and a Gen Z staff that doesn’t take being told what to do well is a recipe for disaster, not delicious coffee.

“But customers have options, too – such as to skip Starbucks and get our morning lift from coffee machines in our offices,” the writer concludes his piece. “It’s easier – and free of aggravation.”

Writer/Columnist

Sierra Marlee is a millennial whose hunger for the truth in a world of fake news has led her to BizPac Review.

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