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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Starbucks St Albans SHAME ON YOU!

217 replies

StarkAndWitchesWillFindYou · 30/10/2010 21:22

After dragging my two preschoolers (one with asd) all over town house hunting we take them into your cafe for a promised drink and marshmellow lollipop.

DH has to queue for ages as you only have one member of staff serving. My children sit quitely, well-behaved and expectantly.

You tell my DH as he is ordering that you close at 6pm (earlier than published time)but that he is welcome to sit down. It is 5:58pm. He orders.

As SOON as the children receive their consumables one of your staff members comes around saying that you are closed. We say politely 'okay'. A minute later we are told that you really need to close and can we now leave.

We point out that we were sold our items and told we could sit down. You tell us that you have already let us stay there for 5 minutes and that we were told that you were closing. You tell us that there was obviously some mis-communication but it wasn't from you because you were very clear.

We mention to our autistic ds that he needs to finish his drink but he gets distressed at the implication that the promised milkshake is about to be taken off him. This results in a meltdown making it difficult for us to get his coat on. All the while one of your member of staff is arguing with us and telling us to hurry up making ds (And now dd) more distressed.

Your member of staff tells us that she is now not being paid for the time. I tell her to take it up with her managers.

And I'm taking it up with you here!

OP posts:
kingbeat23 · 30/10/2010 22:22

The point of complaining is to make sure that this doesn't happen to anyone else again, maybe that they could have something in wrtitten in ther training manuals for new staff to recognise that when it is getting close to closing time to inform customers so that they can make an informed decision of whether to use thier services or not. Not for you.

Original poster
StarkAndWitchesWillFindYou · 30/10/2010 22:31

Oh okay.

Do you think I can ask if the staff truly aren't paid after the publicised closing time?

OP posts:
mamatomany · 30/10/2010 22:33

You should complain we had crap service yesterday in a restaurant and they halved my bill, rightly so.
I was about to refuse to pay so they got 50% more than I thought the meal was worth, but they were paid because they apologised and took the line that the customer is king.

aristocat · 30/10/2010 22:35

you can ask, but i am certain the staff are only paid until closing time and the extra clean-up is done in their own time ..... thats why there were 3 staff there but 2 already cleaning and 1 serving

Maisiethemorningsidecat · 30/10/2010 22:36

Bloody hell, times have obviously changed. When I worked in cafes 25 odd years ago, you had to wait until all the customers had gone, and we all used to pray to every god there is that no-one would come in at 5 minutes to closing time. If they did, it was tough.

YANBU - complain.

chipmonkey · 30/10/2010 22:40

I think given that Stark's dh had had to queue up for ages, and didn't just roll in at 5.58pm, that they should have allowed them 10-15 minutes to finish their food and drinks.

rollerbaby · 30/10/2010 22:46

God how disgusting. Send them a complaint and link to this thread.

DunderMifflin · 30/10/2010 22:49

yanbu - they were closing unexpectedly early, you paid drink in prices, they said you could sit down. complain!

cakewench · 30/10/2010 22:50

Please, please, please say you're sending a copy of your original post to someone at Starbucks HQ. Tell them exactly what happened. You will get a refund at the very least, and they will almost certainly question the manager of the location you visited about what happened and why they're receiving complaints about his shop.

It's one of the benefits of large chains. I say this as someone who worked for a large American chain restaurant once upon a time. You will get a response. I would personally send a complaint to the US head office as well as whatever the UK complaint office is. Be sure to note the exact date and time, and descriptions of the employee involved if possible.

cakewench · 30/10/2010 22:51

doh, sorry for the HTML code up there. I forgot MN doesn't use it. Grin

toomuchmonthatendofthemoney · 30/10/2010 22:53

complain and point out you have named and shamed on popular forum Mumsnet, some head office PR dude will be round to St albans with a guillotine on Monday morning i bet mwha ha ha evil [hgrin]

expatinscotland · 30/10/2010 22:54

I wouldn't have ordered from there if I knew they were closing so soon.

misdee · 30/10/2010 22:55

argh, the ex-coffee shop worker in me is torn.

we used to shut at 7.30, but stop servng at 7. anyone still eating/drinking had 15mins to finish up, or i would start stacking chairs around them. i would do all the clean up possibly, and then wait until they have finished, do the last dishwasher load, get the rubbish out the doors (rubbish wasnt allowed to be seen by customers), wash the floors, wipe everything down and try and get out on time. as wouldnt get paid for a minute past 7.30pm.

HoneyIatethekidsdragon · 30/10/2010 22:59

Misdee, that what we did too...hence assuming that if the ops manager was insisting they were totally shut and unpaid no cleaning was done

OR

she was lying and wanted to whizz round and get done early / cut corners.

I would imagine after the MASSIVE overtime to managers that Starbucks had paid out they do have a set policy and pay staff clearing / cashing up time - I can't imagine they would risk further lawsuits.

LittleMissBliss · 30/10/2010 23:01

I used to work for Costa and we used to get payed 30 minutes after closing but it often took around 45-60 Minutes to do it properly, sweep floors, hoover carpet, mop floors, disinfect all tables, clean the toilets, re-stock food, get rid of all the wastage (out of date food) you have to document it all as well, shutdown and clean all machines, wipe mirrors. Shut down and empty the dish washer. Cash up and if the till was overly up or down we'd be there for ages trying to work out why etc etc.

It took ages so we'd often start a little earlier with the shop open to leave at a half decent time.

They gave you take away cups.
Informed you of their closing time at the point of paying. Your DH continued with his transaction knowing this.
So after this time you were able to continue consuming your purchase away from the store I don't really think they did anything wrong.

You'd had a long day but so had allot of the staff.
Being a barista is really stressful, especially when you have massive takeaway orders and everyone wants their drink faster than it's possible to make! And to their exact taste(which is fine but tricky when you have about 10 to make to all leave at the same time)

Plus the staff weren't to know about your son. It may have helped if you were more fortcoming and they may have allowed for you to stay whilst they shutdown.

LittleMissBliss · 30/10/2010 23:02

forthcoming, sp

Maisiethemorningsidecat · 30/10/2010 23:08

They may have informed them of the closing time, but they did not inform them that all customers had to vacte the premises by 6pm.

I'd love to know if Head Office have set this policy, or is the staff on site have taken it upon themselves.

huddspur · 30/10/2010 23:19

YABU you bought drinks in take away cups and at take away prices so you in effect bought them to take away. So I think they were well within their rights to get rid of you after closing time as you'd bought take aways. If you wanted them inside then you should have got them in proper cups and paid the eat in price.
The fact your ds has autism makes me question why you left it so late

taintedpaint · 30/10/2010 23:20

I understand why you're upset, but I don't think the staff did anything wrong. There are crossed wires here and a massive misunderstanding. Yes, your children were upset, and that's not good, but that wasn't really the fault of the staff and as you acknowledge, they weren't to know one of your LOs is autistic.

They told you the closing time, they gave you takeaway cups and asked you to leave when the closing time came. I don't think there's any dispute to be had. It would be a real shame if you complained in order to get someone in trouble who probably shouldn't be singled out for what sounds, essentially, like a communcation mix-up.

Perhaps you should've finished househunting a bit earlier if you had promised your children a Starbucks visit. Especially if you knew you may have issues with routine disruption.

I don't think you should complain, I think you need to chalk this one up to experience and learn from it.

BelligerentGhoul · 30/10/2010 23:22

Agree with Tainted. I think complaining would be a real over-reaction.

nortine · 30/10/2010 23:26

YABVU OP if it was so important that your DS had to have his milkshake then why did you leave it until 5:58 to arrive there. To be honest I think you were being cheeky wanting to stay past closing hours,

edam · 30/10/2010 23:31

hudds, I haven't seen OP stating that she paid take away prices. Where have you got that from?

Stark, thanks for the warning, I live near St Albans and will be avoiding Starbucks.

edam · 30/10/2010 23:33

Jeez, what is it with people imagining stuff that is NOT in the OP?

Nortine, they didn't get there at 5.58, the dh had to wait in a long queue and eventually got served at 5.58. At which point he was told he was welcome to sit down.

ellesbelles79 · 30/10/2010 23:36

absolutely disgusting service...if closing is 6pm then at 5.58 their doors should be locked while they wrap up the day. To serve you knowing full well you wanted to sit and drink in peace....and then insist you leave 2mins later is just awful. I would definitely take it up with head office & request a full refund!

DunderMifflin · 30/10/2010 23:36

they didn't arrive at 5.58 - op's dh queued for ages as there was only one person serving but three members of staff...

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