Starbuck’s Experience
Just stopped by at a Starbucks in Nanuet, New York and the experience seems to be the same as it is in the ones I visited in at least 5 states over the last few days… not friendly. The employees are so engrossed in ‘The Method” of running the stores that they forget or perhaps they are never told that the most important part of the job is to take care of the customer. So what have you get here? The store is divided into the “coffee manufacturing zone” where the cashiers and baristas exist in a place that is safe from interaction with the public other than to take an order and pump it out and pass it on.
And, just as in other Starbucks stores with counters, you cannot sit at the counter and order your coffee. You must get in line, stand and wait while someone else gets that seat that you had your eye on. And forget about getting it in a ceramic cup.
This culture of the automaton-barista/cashier has really ruined the experience at the store. And, the coffee has gone from a recognizable, if burnt, roast to an erratic attempt at satisfying everyman. I say erratic because I have been vistitng Starbuck’s on a regular basis recently in an attempt to see what they are up to and I’ll be darned if they haven’t screwed up their identity even more than before the retooled several months ago. Each time I sample the coffee, it’s different and although they are sporting shiny, new equipment, the brews have varied from strong to weak and the coffee quality seems to swing wildly.
To give some credit, the brew that I tried today made with the Pike’s Place Roast was done well. The roast seemed even-handed with just a hint of the darkness of earlier Starbuck’s Roasts; it had a suggestion of pasilla pepper in the cup but i suspect that this subtle roast is hard to control at the store level. It is also kept way too hot in their warmers and I guess that it sits too long while the barristas are busy makinng their specialty coffee drinks. the coffee suffers and is good only if you happen to get it just as it was brewed.