Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Why I like Starbucks

I know Starbucks is a corporate giant and I should support my local coffee shop...blah blah blah. I get it. But Starbucks keeps me coming back for two reasons: convenience and customer service.

I don't buy into the whole "we're so cool that we can't be nice to you" mentality that often accompanies the local coffee house scene. And while there's a lot to be said for the charm and uniqueness of neighborhood shops, they're often not easy or convenient to access.

All that said, I don't have exclusive loyalty to the Starbucks brand. But that might change after today. I recently moved to a new part of town, which means finding the new locations in my area. This morning on the way to work, I went to the Starbucks with a drive-through that's near my house.

As I pulled up to the intercom, the barista inside said "Good morning, Sweetie. What can I get for ya?"
It threw me off for a moment. The thought went through my mind "what if I had been a man? Can the barista see me, or do they just take a guess and hope for the best?" To complicate matters, I couldn't tell by the voice whether the person on the other end of the intercom was an older black woman, or a gay man.

After I placed my order, the barista said "alright Baby, come on up."
Erm...okay.

When I got to the window, I still couldn't tell if the person was an older black woman or a gay man. Either way, the sweetie and baby didn't bother me...I was just surprised. Then the other guy at the window leaned out and asked "do you want a piece of lemon cake?"

I told him I didn't order any lemon cake. "I know," he said. "But I have an extra piece here and I thought you might want to have it. Here ya go."

So Sweetie Baby drove off with a piece of lemon cake thinking this might be my favorite Starbucks location.

3 comments:

Megan Bennett said...

That beats the heck out of my morning where I found out our coffee maker broke......and lost my car key so I couldn't even drive to go get one. DOH!

Mama Shumate said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Jonathan said...

FYI I used to work at Starbucks and yes they can see you. There's a camera on the menu display. You can't see serious details, but it was funny from time to time what you might see.

oh and that last attempt was from me but I realized I was on k's account and switched.