Why I Said Goodbye to Starbucks

My love affair with coffee started at a young age. I can remember my grandma giving me coffee in her sunroom in the morning when I would sit in there and play card games with her. I remember playing tea at a friends house. While everyone else wanted to drink juice in their cups, I would beg for coffee and her mom would always concede. I remember my dad taking me to see "a coffee shop in a bookstore!" And I remember when the first Starbucks opened in my city when I was 14. Everyone loved it. Sure, most my friends were getting frappuccinos while I got a cappuccino. But I loved coffee and never went down the super sweet coffee road. 

In high school, hanging out at Starbucks was basically a daily occurrence. In college, both Ian and I worked at Starbucks. After college, the love continued. And my love only grew during my time working at Starbucks in Scotland. After having Isla, my love of the Starbucks drive thru was born. I needed to get out of the house but didn't want to unload two kids from the car. And after being up half the night, the Starbucks drive thru was just the place to go. 

Then my kids started getting older. I started treating Connor to his own drink. And that's where the drama began. More often than not, stores wanted to argue with me about the cost of a kids beverage. It really was workers on some weird power trip, but I got tired of it. I got tired of ordering a $1.40 drink for my four year old and having to argue with the person ringing me up why I shouldn't have to pay $3…when it was clearly on their menu for $1.40!!! I actually can't even tell you how many times the manager got involved and how many times I wrote Starbucks in frustration about the matter. Because of that, I basically stopped going to Starbucks altogether. It wasn't worth it for me to argue about the price of a child's beverage each time I went there. 

I get that Starbucks is a money making corporation. I have never had a problem with that. But over the past few years, they seem to care more about churning out overly sweet beverages at an alarmingly fast rate than they do about their customers. I can't tell you how many times my cup of coffee I ordered was only luke warm. And given my "inside knowledge" it appears that more often than not, they are serving old coffee…fresh brewed coffee is supposed to be dumped and rebrewed every hour. Now, my husband probably wishes I had given up on Starbucks and their "subpar" coffee years ago. But it never bothered me. It was convenient. Even though they are everywhere and convenient, they are no longer worth it to me. So, with sadness in my heart, I shut the door on a huge chapter in my life and kiss Starbucks goodbye. I wish them and their zillion frappuccino flavors all the best. 

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