This past two weeks have been traumatic to my morning routine, but it gave me a chance to test out Starbucks online ordering. So the short version is the Starbucks I stop by every morning – MY Starbucks – is temporarily closed for remodeling. The first day I thought nothing of it. I continued on to work, grabbed a bottled water from the fridge and went about my day. Fast forward two hours and I had a massive headache and couldn’t concentrate. I learned the hard way I am dependent on having a jolt of coffee to get me going. Tuesday morning, I decided to try a local gas station coffee. I have a co-worker who drinks it every day and seems to like it. Foolishly, I thought, this could get me by until Starbucks reopened. I drank maybe 1/3 of the gas station coffee. The flavor was just so blah. I know many people who say Starbucks is overpriced and that I’m crazy to pay what I do for coffee – and that is a valid opinion. I didn’t enjoy the gas station coffee though, so even at half the price it wasn’t worth what I paid. Again I was defeated. I decided Wednesday I had to do something bold – I was going to venture across town to the other Starbucks. I’ve been there a few times but it’s not in an area of town I traffic frequently. As I sat at a stoplight, getting ready to diverge from my regular route to work I remembered Starbucks now had online ordering. To conserve time (and let’s be honest here, I like to try cool new things) I grabbed my phone, tapped in my order and drove off. The phone experience was fine; you can modify your drinks just as you would in store. It even saved my custom drink (Bold blend with Extra Cream for the curious) for one tap reordering. The in-store experience was decent, but my Barista seemed confused about where my drink was until another Barista showed her a special area for online orders. In the interest of fairness, they haven’t been doing this too long so I can let it slide. All the successive days since I have driven across town to the other Starbucks. In all honesty it only adds around ten minutes to my morning commute, but I’m back to getting my coffee the way I like. Some of the employees from the still being remodeled Starbucks have been showing up at the other location as well. My understanding is that the construction crews should be done with the remodeling in the next few days and I can return to my regularly scheduled Starbucks stops. Having tried online ordering I would do it again; the process is simple and works well but I tend to be a drive through guy and my understanding is you have to physically go in the store for online orders. Maybe I should start getting out more and going through the drive through less. Maybe. Tagged with