8 Drink Orders Starbucks Employees Secretly Don't Like Preparing
The employee experience at an establishment is often much different from the customer experience, as any recently unionized Starbucks employee can tell you. The biggest coffee chain in the world employs over 400,000 people across 80 countries. With a menu full of espresso wonders, hot and iced drinks galore, there are bound to be a handful that are an absolute pain in the butt to make.
Every service job has an order that will get a reaction out of the employees. Often they find solidarity in how uniformly unfun some of these items, or drinks in the case of bartenders and baristas, can be to make. When it comes to Starbucks employees, there are a handful of answers that come up time and time again.
To find out which drinks they loathe making the most, I reached out to current and former Starbucks employees and asked them the simple question: "What is the drink you most hate to prepare?" Additionally, I looked at what employees have posted online. Read on to find out which orders Starbucks baristas aren't exactly fans of preparing.
1. Frappuccinos
After hearing back from employees, it was very obvious that the Frappuccino is the No. 1 most despised item to make on the Starbucks menus. But it's not going anywhere, and that popularity — especially in the summer months — might be a reason these are so hated.
In particular, Frappuccinos with layers of mix-ins, like the Caramel Ribbon Crunch and Mocha Cookie Crumble, were noted as the most annoying; although one answer was the Strawberries and Cream Frappuccino so across the board it seems they are a real pain for Starbucks baristas everywhere.
Baristas say that summers at Starbucks are the worst time of year due to the popularity of Frappuccinos on hot days, and the obnoxious and messy process of making them. And do not ask for your Frappuccino double blended, because baristas know what is best for you and it is not a watered-down milkshake.
2. Secret menu items
Starbucks isn't an In N' Out Burger. The coffee chain's menu is already extensive and features new seasonal drinks and treats at all times of year, so you don't need to reach for a secret menu to get what you want there. Yet, there are still customers who insist on getting their own custom creation and calling it the Starbucks secret menu. Baristas aren't fans of this so-called secret.
Some of the most hated "secret" menu items Starbucks employees are asked to make include Butterbeer and Snickerdoodle Frappuccinos, as well as named drinks they have never even heard of. As one Starbucks barista confessed in a Reddit thread, "Employees would be more than happy to make you a drink if you just explain the recipe rather than the name of it." And that's editing out all the profanity. Clearly, the secret menu brings to mind plenty of traumatic memories for Starbucks employees.
3. Eggnog latte
'Tis the season. Or at least it is when you see the eggnog latte making its way back to the Starbucks menu. Already a stressful time, the holidays are made more intense for Starbucks baristas by their hatred of this seasonal espresso drink.
While it might not seem much different than any other latte made with dairy alternatives like oat or almond milk, the eggnog latte actually provides its own unique complications. According to employees on Reddit, the biggest problem with preparing the drink is how loud it is to steam the eggnog. It seems the eggnog by itself is too thick for the steamer wand of the Starbucks espresso machines to handle. This is why one barista in the thread brought up cutting it with nonfat milk, which appears to be a common practice when making the drink for this very reason.
Another user in a different Reddit thread even mentioned at their store they were told not to serve "uncut" eggnog lattes. One employee responded with contradicting information saying "as long as we cleaned the wand immediately after steaming uncut eggnog" it was fine by their manager. Either way, this drink spells trouble all the way up the food chain.
4. No foam lattes
Nothing, according to Starbucks employees, is more tedious than scooping foam off the top of a latte. At the coffee chain, customers are allowed to order a latte and ask for it without any milk foam. You might think that's ridiculous considering the foam is a part of what makes a latte, you know, a latte, and employees would agree with you there.
Starbucks baristas hate having to scoop the foam off the top of a latte by hand because of how much the task slows down the line. It's also tedious and leads to entitled customers making posts complaining about getting a little bit of foam in their drink. Depending on what type of milk you get in your drink it will foam differently, but Starbucks employees have largely found the general populace ignorant of those details.
A more helpful Reddit post by a Starbucks barista explained that whenever any milk is steamed a "micro-foam" is created as the steamed drink sits. The scoop method of removal, as the post put it, is meant to get as much foam out as quickly as possible. If the drink continues to sit (such as it does in a car or while you wait for your name to be called) micro-foam will begin to form while it sits. This makes it especially difficult to make a foamless latte appear that way.
5. Iced cappuccinos
The iced cappuccino is an invention of Starbucks and other Americanized coffee chains that the French espresso snobs who invented the cappuccino would look down on. By definition, the difference between a latte and a cappuccino is that the former is a creamier, taller drink made with espresso and steamed milk. A cappuccino is made with equal parts steamed and foamed milk, which leads to a much stronger espresso flavor. Served hot, the drinks should be very different. On ice, they can be a headache for baristas everywhere, including Starbucks.
In fact, according to Starbucks employees on Reddit, the iced cappuccino as it once stood is not on the menu anymore. However, it is still listed on the website at a national level. This may be due to the addition of cold foam to the menu, which is also on the website and seems to have replaced the original in many locations.
Employees noted that people still ask for the original drink, and when asked nicely they can try to approximate it. But an iced drink made with steamed milk and topped with a good deal of foam is a pretty complex order. Perhaps that's why many current and former employees in the thread suggest leading the customer to order an iced latte with cold foam on top instead of a cappuccino.
6. Anything with cold foam
On the other side of the foam coin, Starbucks baristas don't want you to order cold foam on that iced drink. Regardless of how delicious it may be, this form of foam is a pain in the butt to whip up. Starbucks' signature cold foam sits on top certain iced coffee drinks like the Pumpkin Cream Cold Brew. While it can easily be confused for the Starbucks sweet cream, this whipped topping is sweetened cold-frothed milk that tops your cold brew like a flavored whipped cream, only lighter.
A TikTok from a Starbucks employee said, "There's a special place in hell for people that get sweet cold foam on their drinks." In the comments, some speculated on why that might be.
@alewhatsup maybe i’m just a hater
All signs seem to point to the specific cold foam blender whose only purpose is for these drinks. Cleaning out the blender and making the foam is a time-consuming process for how little of the substance is used per order.
7. Espresso macchiato
The espresso macchiato is one of the most hated orders by Starbucks employees not because it's difficult to make, but because people who order it often do so by mistake — or without knowing what it is they actually want. Naturally, that means this order always comes with the foreknowledge of a potential customer fit.
In the French tradition of the beverage, a macchiato is a shot of espresso topped with a small amount of steamed, foamed milk. A macchiato is a small beverage that is served unsweetened. Starbucks and Dunkin' drinkers, though, might be more familiar with the iced macchiato, which is a much different drink that includes more milk and often shots of flavored syrups, like caramel. So when a customer orders an espresso macchiato and gets a tiny cup, they wind up disappointed or confused.
Starbucks employees complain about having this miscommunication with customers. They find most Starbucks regulars are familiar with the Caramel Macchiato as their only association with the beverage. If what you wanted was a Caramel Macchiato without the caramel, you might as well just order a latte.
8. Heavily customized drinks
"Heavily customized drinks" was the other most popular response to the question posed to current and former Starbucks baristas regarding which drinks they most dislike preparing. These drinks can slow down the process and mess with a barista's mojo. Worst of all, even just one of these orders can lead to a long queue of customers waiting behind the smart aleck who decided that Starbucks was a Subway.
In 2014, a Starbucks barista once confessed to Cosmopolitan that some of the most annoying drink orders were what she called "high maintenance drinks." If it takes an entire paragraph to detail and describe (or more than 10 seconds to communicate to the barista) your order is high maintenance. If you want more than four shots of espresso in your drink, it's high maintenance. Don't be a high-maintenance customer; there are plenty of delicious drinks on the Starbucks menu that employees are more than happy to make for you.