For context, I worked at a drive-thru corporate store for 3 months, and I have been working at a Starbucks inside a grocery for 3 months. I have a couple of opinions based on my experiences.

I thought I liked working at corporate Starbucks while I was there. The people I worked with were very funny, and I loved the fast-paced environment. Learning the drinks was my favorite part, especially experimenting with my drink markouts.

I now come to realize how unhappy everyone was while they were working - They were constantly talking bad about customers in the headset, they complained about all the work they had to do. Whenever someone saw an 8hr shift on their schedule, it was like the end of their lives. I was a new person in a sea of partners who had over a year of experience, and I was always put under the pressure that I had to be as good as them because of the constant flow of customers versus how fast I was going. In fairness, it is pretty hard to get written up or terminated at corporate - trust me, we had people calling out twice a week with no repercussion.

Then I was offered an opportunity to move to a licensed store.

I immediately got a $2 raise for my prior Starbucks experience. Even though I was the slowest at my old store, I am now the fastest at my new store because it's at a much more relaxed pace. I lost my partner numbers and perks, obviously, because I'm no longer technically a Starbucks employee, but I get the grocery store benefits (also we find our way around paying too much. charging ourselves for an iced coffee but getting an iced white mocha for example, then reusing the receipt to make more drinks).

Everyone at this store genuinely loves their work, and customer connections are so much easier to make because you aren't focusing on times. We don't have things like nitro cold brew or blonde espresso, and we can only redeem 150 stars for handcrafted drinks, so that gets kind of annoying sometimes because of entitled customers, but it's rare. I remember dreading any 8hr shift I had at corporate, but at my licensed store, I can spend an 8hr shift closing *alone* 4 nights a week and still enjoy my job. It's a much closer community, but it is significantly harder to get a shift covered since there are only 8 employees. Also, it doesn't take a lot to get fired, but just do the bare minimum and you're good lol

Idk why I felt the need to share this, but sometimes on this subreddit I see partners rant about how much they dislike the company and how unhappy they are, and while I used to relate, I haven't felt that since I transferred. Maybe it's an option some should consider, it worked out for me! However, these are my personal experiences, and they do not speak for anyone else. I came from probably the worst corporate store in town, and I know how sucky some licensed stores can be