Inconsistent. Changeable. Erratic. These are undesirable adjectives for the product, service & experience expected of the cafe where we proudly buy our grossly overpriced morning coffee [I refer you to 'The Lego Movie.']
Our at least-daily pilgrimages to our favorite coffee drink-dispensing chains, ingeniously implanted in us by marketers expert in the latest neuropsychological behavior modification techniques, and ingrained as habits by status (ego) & peer pressure (fear), fuel our caffeinated lemming parades. The ringing registers and flow of beverages depend on quick and reliable transactions. Process flow here at 17th & El Camino Real is far from robust, with little spare capacity, parallelism, or apparently even cross training. Even an occasional customer forgetting his payment card, or a rare fulfillment error, throws a wrench in the gears which brings the line to a halt and starts the lemmings a-grumbling.
Case in point : Today I, yes eye, was that guy who left his iPhone with its Starbucks payment app in the car. (I know, right? Can you believe it? I still can't.) I apologetically rushed out to retrieve said sole payment means. Upon my return the cashier was still working to "save" my 1-drink order while I waited. Then she proceeded to help the next customer, who happened to have a long order list for the office. Okay, fair enough, sentence passed & fine paid for my oversight.
Order taken (tried the NEW S'more Frap w/o whip) & paid for ( $5 + tip for a Grande/medium? Yowza! No wonder I usually stick to drip), I waited until my drink appeared in turn. [N.B. Labeling items as "NEW" is a proven method of increasing sales, even on a known mature product.] It looked like a big frothy thing, as expected for something with a hokey fake Italian-sounding name like Frappuccino. Only after I'd finished most of it did I notice that Something Was Rotten in San Mateo. Most of the drink was (real) whipped cream! But I ordered mine sans cream, and the cashier properly documented my request on the cup (shown in the photos for this store). Argggggh!
Did I piss and moan to the barista or the supervisor? No. Why not? If you occupy a seat here for any length of time, you'll observe dozens of customers being dissed identically. The baristas literally DON'T CARE what's written on the cup! The cashier's Sharpie may as well engrave a column of Question Marks on the ordering boxes, because the people making the drinks are likely gonna freewheel it and mix up what they damn well please!
And that's the opposite of Regular, Dependable, Predictable. It's Chaos, I say.
So why 2 stars? That $5 S'more was tasty! read more