Banned from Starbucks

[Monicachoux]

I am part of a group of new mothers who used to meet a local Birmingham Starbucks for a coffee and chat once a week. The Starbucks is located within a hotel, and both businesses share a lounge area big enough for us, our babies and baby equipment.
We have (after about 6 meets) been told we are not welcome to meet there anymore as the "venue has been booked for corporate seminars and events on the days you meet, and this will be taking place for the next few months".
Starbucks boasts a sign stating "Sit and relax in our lounge area at the back", yet, we are no longer welcome to relax here with our babies anymore... Numbers for our group range from about 4 or 5 mums with their babies up to about 7 or 8 (so we're hardly an army) and each of us consumed drinks and snacks from the coffee shop and hotel when we went there... Are we being unreasonable by expecting to be treated like any other Starbucks customer in spite of (the horror!) having babies? I have to say that I for one was quite shocked when they (very nicely) informed us we couldn't meet there anymore- this is DEFINITELY NOT a baby-friendly establishment

Saggy - you'd love my children - we are all they are very messy untidy poeple. BUT I will not let them leave a cafe/restaraunt table (of the sort where you get up and leave the plates on the table) in a mess. If they've had the snack boxes all wrappers must be tidied up and put inside the now empty boxes, and all cups/plates/cutlery must be left in a way that is easy for it to be picked up and cleared away.

oh argh gak to the nappy being left behind!! That's even worse than changing them on the table - ARRRRGHHHH!!!

so no actual coffee in the crappybabycino then? suppose that's marginally better.

Here's my tip: save money not buying poor quality coffees in Starbucks and use it to send child to nursery for a couple of hr a week.
You'll enjoy some proper me time and child will be in a child friendly environment, not crawling on the dirty carpet of a place selling undrinkable coffee.

There's no coffee in babychino's, when I made them it was a tiny amount of warm milk with frothy milk on top and some chocolate or cinnamon sprinkled on top in an espresso cup.

I think the customers at our store were generally pretty good, but there is no doubt at all that certain customers with babies were the worst. We had a regular group of adults with serious learning disabilities who would come in and practice using money etc with us and their carers who made so much effort to make sure everything was clean and tidy even though it wasn't easy for them at all. It made me really cross that those certain families just didn't bother and didn't give a stuff.

When did people stop respecting other people? I have a big buggy (and a little one), if i have the big one with me i avoid places it is likely to get in the way including the bus (though i don't drive!) I don't expect that my children and I are allowed in every single venue on the planet.

Am i just wierd? (don't answer that!)

Now - where's my Nappychino gone?

thumbwitch - a babycino is hot frothy milk. DD3 is quite partial to them when we have lunch in town (M&S does a child's sandwich for £1.50, babycino is 50p - seems like the least rip-off place around). But I ask her if she wants a juice or a hot milk as I think I sound a bit poncey teaching her to say "babycino"!

Our local hospital did away with the WRVS cafe abd put a Starbucks in (grrr, but that's a different thread to start...) - there is loads of room in outpatients waiting, perhaps I should suggest we set up a toddler group there

Someone left a dirty nappy folded inside a copy of the Daily Mail at the soft play at my local garden centre the other day (the softplay is inside the restaurant so people usually have tea and a cake there. The bloody toilets with a changing table are only round the corner

Good sleuthing soupy - I love the way that NM's general reaction is so different :o

Urgh. Abandoned dirty nappies.

We went swimming the other week and I pulled down the changing table in one of the family cubicles and someone had left their used nappy, some dirty wipes and a tissue with blood on it folded up inside the table.

OMG that is disgusting. I find it shocking that some people just truly don't give a shit about anyone else.

They give a shit TO someone else though. Ba-boom!

When I come across an indignant post from a first time poster, I often google a phrase from it.

I only point this out to make it completely clear that I did not discover it whilst browsing the Glittery Side.

A dirty nappy is nothing compared to the used Tampax I found on my doorstep (and note that we had a small gated front yard before you got to the door!)

Monica does not, as yet, appear to have posted this on the Bad Mothers Club. I really think she should... in fact I am tempted to do it for her.

What about Baby and Bump? They can be very vocal on the subject of injustice to moaners hard done-by mums.

There was a thread similar to this one a while back, about a newspaper article featuring a few chavs mums who felt miffed they were no longer welcome with their sprogs and behemouth buggies. In a pub.

In.a.pub.

FFS.

Has she posted on Bounty? Or is no one going to admit to being able to check?

:o kungfu

At school all the girls had to stay behind after assembly while our Deputy Head gave us a talking to:

"SOMEONE has left a USED SANITARY TOWEL hanging from the toilet flush"

I just can't imagine the mentality of someone choosing to do that....

From the opening description, I reckon this is the Starbucks at the Mailbox in Brum. It's in a weird collection of foody places in that the Starbucks is the closest to a cafe amongst them. The rest are more restaurant food, not just coffee and cake.

And if memory serves, 7 - 8 people, babies and buggies would take over at least half the space in there.

In that case iridium it does sound as if Op and her friends have been being unreasonable, the hotel management have been very tolerant. They then realised that they were being used as a regular venue and called time.

I did think it might have been the Mailbox Starbucks in which case, Iridium is correct. Not enough room to swing a dead cat, nevermind a shitty nappy.

Why would you want to go to Starbucks anyway? Way too corporate and American for me.