Dear Ms. Barrista,
Starbucks is a monolith that dominates the coffee landscape running small businesses into the ground. I tolerate this because, well, it is a monolith which means it is convenient. Starbucks sells bad coffee – burnt, overroasted – in pretentious sizes (grande or medium?) for way too much money per cup. Again, this is tolerated because, well, we really have no other choice. What can’t be tolerated is innattention to detail.
More specifically:
When someone asks for decaf fucking give them decaf!
Regards,
The involuntary insomniac
tall, grande, venti
like it, love it, gotta have it
gulp, big gulp, super big gulp
small, medium, large
when will the madness stop?
You know, you can just be stubborn and say “I’ll have a medium white coffee” and hold your ground.
On the plus side, they’re about the only coffee place I’ve been in the USA where the coffee is actually hot enough to drink. Diners and all variety of restaurants seem to specialise in half-warmed-through, number 2 strength swill (and I’ve been from MacDonalds to famous chef-type places with $100 main courses).
Hot, number 5-strength coffee is all I’m after, people.
Oh, and while I’m on-rant: espresso without crema is not espresso, it’s overly-expensive crappy black coffee in a tiny cup.