I go to Starbucks maybe three times a year.

NPR story last week about STBX

https://www.npr.org/2024/10/29/nx-s1-5162245/starbucks-earnings-sales-ceo-brian-niccol

Because Starbucks is poor quality. There are a handful of franchises that will do the reserve coffees. But those are pretty rare. And even if you find one, staff generally don't know what they are doing. The independents are much better. Plus I don't want to put garbage apps on my phone. These days, I'm at a Starbucks maybe twice a year.

I hate apps and those who use them to cut me in line.

I go to starbucks about once a month. To me it's easier to walk in and talk to a human than stand on the street or in the store and navigate yet another app to find the store and place my order. Plus I don't mind talking to people.

I like interesting with humans. I’ll use it if I’m in a hurry. But otherwise I enjoy the process of “going to the coffee shop down the block” as much as I enjoy the coffee itself

Anonymous wrote:I'm a teacher, and I go to Starbucks when I get a gift card. I might buy something, and then give the rest to one of my kids to use, so I don't want to attach the gift card to an app. So, I go in person.

Also, I don't really like their drinks, so I usually get something to eat and an ice water. I like to see the options.

Same. Their coffee is not very good.

I agree OP although my spouse is very loyal to the drive thru.
I get a coffee at work most afternoons. I order on the app, walk the 2 blocks, just go in and grab it and walk back to work.

I don't want another app on my phone.

Let alone for a place I don't go consistently.

I generally avoid apps whenever possible because I have to spend hours reading a terms of service before I end up agreeing to something with so much legal and technical jargon I don’t fully understand it. The part that I do understand is that I am authorizing them to take advantage of me in every way they can dream up, including spying on me and selling my information to parties unknown. In the meantime, the app takes up space on my phone and the cookies slow down my phone to some degree, even if it is minutely.

Since I rarely go to Starbucks, I don’t feel the advantages would offset the hassle.

Why don’t you make coffee at home?

Anonymous wrote:My app has never worked right. Despite multiple contacts with customer service, I cannot add a gift card to my account and I only go there when I have a gift card.

I tried registering for an account in like 2011 and something crashed mid-set up and I've never been able to get an account working since. My email and phone number are in some version of pergatory. Not registered but not unregistered.

Anonymous wrote:If adding a few minutes to a Starbucks trip is such a big chore for you, why would you go at all? It's so cheap and easy to make good coffee at home, and it takes so much less time than driving to Starbucks and going inside.

Dude a lot of us live in cities and go to Starbucks that are like steps from our houses. I would never drive to a coffee shop. But I'd also never live in the sort of place where I have to drive to get to a coffee shop.

Some of you are ridiculous.

I go to Starbucks because it's cheaper. I will go to one of the nicer spots with better food and drinks sometimes, but often I just need a place to camp and work for an hour or two in order to get out of my house or between meetings or client visits (I own my own business). I go to Starbucks because it's predictable and affordable and if I use the app I regularly get free drinks or pastries there. Since I'm mostly using it as a mobile office, not a source of the best beverage I've ever had, this works fine.

Also I'm more of tea drinker than a coffee drinker. The tea at Starbucks is okay (they serve Harney & Sons which is actually decent quality) and reasonably priced. I cannot tell you how many times I've gone into some bespoke coffee shop and ordered tea and been handed either bagged tea and a cup of hot water ("here make this") or a weak ass tea and then been charged like $6. Eff off -- that is offensive. Even at places who will make a bespoke london fog with loose team, it's regularly two weak with the wrong proportion of ingredients (hello Tatte).

Anyway, I always roll my eyes so hard at people who get snooty about Starbucks but then go to these other chains that are every bit as corporate but hide it behind "French" or "Farmstyle" decor and absurd prices. The last time I was in a Maman the AC was out and it was like 100 degrees inside and all the tables were dirty. Tatte has great pastries but the drinks or only okay.

Anyway I agree OP -- if you are going to submit to the intentionally corporate, assembly-line experience of Starbucks (which is a perfectly fine thing to do, get off your high horses), you might as well do it the cheap and efficient way and use the app.

Obviously if you would never deign to go in a Starbucks because it offends your self-conception as a discerning consumer of bespoke coffee drinks, no one would expect you to use the app to NOT order anything there. Duh.

If adding a few minutes to a Starbucks trip is such a big chore for you, why would you go at all? It's so cheap and easy to make good coffee at home, and it takes so much less time than driving to Starbucks and going inside.