As a current licensed barista who used to work at a corporate DT store… licensed peak sucks way worse than any corporate one because at least at corporate we had a 5+ man play, while at licensed I’m on my own because nobody from our store wants to cross train and help us cover breaks.

Plus, we earn more AND don’t have to clean bathrooms. As much shit as licensed stores get, I’ll take my grocery discount over free coffee any day.

Tbh even corporate Starbucks baristas aren’t real baristas. Everything is a push of a button for us, whereas local cafes actually measure and tamp their own espresso for every drink. That’s a real barista. We’re glorified fast food but with coffee. Starbucks doesn’t care enough about quality of these drinks to be anything more than fast food coffee. It’s all about drive times and “connections.”

We just had a transfer from a licensed store. He’s a total gangsta when it comes to his work. The only downside is he tries to do everything himself. The other day he told me he was almost out of VSC. I turned around and started making 4 pitchers, because I help. He started making 4 at the cold bar, because he’s used to doing everything himself. We laughed and the. barely got them all into the fridge.

Fast food employee puts down other fast food employee for not being /real/ fast food employee

i worked at a license starbucks and am currently working at a corporate one. maybe it's just my experience but i worked a lot harder at the licensed store. i didn't get proper training, just computer training for the grocery store that wasn't even what i was going to work at, i did a lot of work that what is now my shift supervisors work, the scheduling was horrible, we were always understaffed and the customers would get mad at us for not having specific items or because we couldn't scan their app for stars.
if u were to come by to my current starbucks i'd honestly just give you ur drink for free haha

if it makes you feel any better, i’m at a licensed store with a drive thru and we use dark caramel!! i hate it though, it shoots out like a fuckin machine gun and gets everywhere!!

There's a couple people like that at my store and they're obnoxious losers too. We literally all do the same job and customers for the most part don't know about the corporate vs licensed structure. AND we use dark caramel too when there's no regular drizzle.

It's not like a glamorous job or something lol I don't see the need to be a dick about it or act like there's a hierarchy

If we’re really getting technical neither are “real” baristas. A lot of partners wouldn’t survive having to “manually” make drinks. But I would take corporate over licensed any day just for the staffing alone. It sucks being in a grocery store next to a high school and being alone for 8 hours with no one cross trained to help.

It's not licensed store baristas that I have a problem with, it's the secret menu creators and the people who do things like put fruit pieces in the foaming pitcher and things that you can't do at corporate stores. It's the fact that tarbucks get more cups than corporate stores but don't have mobile order. I feel for my college campus and kiosk baristas because I know college stores are always busy and that kiosks are always low staffed.

So many people employees here love to lick the corporate boot.

I completely agree. I work at a licensed cafe store and my corporate friends say that although they might get more busy than us, licensed stores are typically as or sometimes more difficult because we’re expected to do a lot more by ourselves. It’s completely true, as it’s very common for us to only have one barista and shift during peak hours. We have to juggle making sweet cream, brewing more coffee, heating up food, etc. while also making Tik tok drinks.

I used to work at a licensed and now at a corporate, i hate licensed sbux as a company for firing me from an airport job when i told them i couldn't work at 4am when in my availability clearly states that i wasn't available at that time. I was available at 6am not 4am. I did it because i had no other job and ended up fired for a combination of petty reasons.

We all had the same job, the rushes were actually worst, work conditions sucked but that its not the baristas fault, its management.

YOU ARE a real barista. And perhaps deserve better.

I don’t see the point of acting pretentious over a fucking Starbucks job

H-how *dare* you pretend to be a part of this, oh, *very prestigious* and *exclusive* club of underpaid and exhausted workers?? /s

OMFG I have to admit this was my attitude...mainly because when I went to use my numbers...I was not able to use it -\_-

To be fair in my defense NO one told me that I can't use my partner discounts at a franchise store...so I made it a habit to avoid kiosks unless I knew it was a corporate and to ask if the store is corporate....

Not to mention in my kiosk there is never more than 2 people doing the job it takes 4 or more at a big store to do.

I’m sorry you had that experience!! That’s pretty rude of them =\
At the end of the day you hold the same exact job title though!!

We’re all in the trenches together, lbr

I moved from a target to corporate and got so much shit at first. But once they saw I could hold my own it stopped. How bout they try being the only person working with a line of ten people and having to ring, food, and make drinks.

Idk about other people, but we have a girl at my store who used to work at a licensed store. She told us that it’s totally different than what it was like working where she worked (that it is a lot more fast passed and high stress).

Although Ik everyone’s experiences are different, I don’t think that people who work at corp stores should shit on license stores. We have different challenges, and circumstances.

I’m a black aproned barista (formerly manager) of all my barista years at a licensed grocery store kiosk - several have come from or left and gone to corporate stores and furthermore we got more merch over the pandemic since we were open and so many Corp ones weren’t 🤷‍♀️

I felt the opposite. Like when we had to go thru diversity training franchised stores where giving is so much shit for it.

I don't understand why they would be like that, either. I feel bad for the baristas in the store sometimes because there's only ever one or two people working, and sometimes I feel like there's more people getting coffee than there are shopping.

I will say, though, if I ever worked at a Starbucks again, it would be at a licensed store location. There is no way I will ever go back to being miserable at a corporate DT Starbucks location.

Honey thats just a person that hates their job and honestly i would hate working with. There are corporate cafes without DTs, some of them more busy than those with DTs. Ive worked top ten volume in region, i trained at a corporate non-DT I’ve worked an up and coming, and lastly worked for simon mall starbucks. So i know what you’re going through. Might have to flex next time and tell them your customer connection is better than theirs and your just licensed store lmao, or maybe that your the best fucking barista you know. Cause even if thats a lie aint nothing wrong with that level of confidence. Shake it off bitch

Ive worked at a franchise store with a drive thru previously and now work at a licensed store inside a grocery store. Neither of these positions are what I'd call real baristas, but there's something to be said for the differences in training. At my franchise store my training was maybe two days doing online stuff, then whatever bar practice they could give me with whoever was working--sometimes people who had only been there a week longer than me.

At my licensed store, I actually went through the barista basics book and got certified, then went on to become trainer certified only a few weeks later. Now I've got my coffee mastery, and I've only been at my current location a year. I know way more about coffee and the recipes now than i think i ever would had i stayed at the other store.

In summary, licensed stores may not always be as busy as franchise stores, but that just allows for better training, maybe making us the better baristas...

That was rude AF. Sorry that happened to you. ETA: I just read the line about peak, I somehow skipped that one! WTF, disregard everything else I wrote, lol. What a douche.

Also, he might have meant something in regard to the specific thing you guys were talking about. We are not supposed to swap the dark caramel for the regular caramel drizzle unless requested or asked specifically if there's a dark caramel drizzle. We aren't supposed to just sub it or even really offer it as a drizzle to the guest, unless they are asking us directly on their own inspiration whether we can do that or unless they are making such a huge stink and clog in the system that it gets them out of the way to finally offer it and get them gone.

We're in a shortage and they don't want to spark new shortages while still dealing with the original shortages, kwim? So they've specficially told us in our district NOT to offer dark caramel as a substitute for caramel drizzle on regular caramel fraps or for caramel macchiatos.

So you suggesting that and saying that's what you do at your store? He's probably trying to figure out which store so he can let SM know to pass on the actual policy so we don't get rando customers yelling at us (who are following this new direct) "tHe OtHeR sTaRbUcKs..." as we all run out of dark caramel now, too. "real" barista meaning someone who works for/deal with Starbucks corporate, not as in an actual "real" barista.

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Ditto to all of the above! I opened and closed solo…it’s totally normal at licensed stores. And we did EVERYTHING alone, I just got hired at a corporate store and it’s blowing my mind that’s there’s enough people to be stationed at specific spots!! Like what?! I used to run around non stop with maybe one other person to get everything done.

I think its because non corporate baristas are usually the ones who do that tiktok shit. Half the tiktoks I see look like a grocery store setup. I'm licensed as well.

You know those stories, where customers say "the other starbucks lets me do it!" For shit like blending cakepops? Probably a licensed store.

I've worked at 3 different licensed locations. 2 of them were filthy and didnt follow standard. My current store says its okay to not add hot water to chai by default because the customers like it better, and apparently our district manager gave them the OK. When I know starbucks wants us to follow standard recipe.

They make whip cream with 6 pumps of vanilla, never clean the oven, hopper, or grinder. They also insist on having mocha last 48 hours instead of 24 for some reason. We don't brew iced cofffee correct either. And this is all trained to baristas. For years.

I've worked with a couple people who didn't care about making drinks correctly. Half my coworkers at store 2 would make caramel macchiatos like a latte and stir them. Then another would put ice in the shaker cups first while doing refreshers.

But I give up on trying to follow standard, because they told me this is the way licensed stores do it. I know my sample size is small, but after talking to other licensed baristas, I don't think my experiences are that different. Perhaps not as bad, but theres room for a lot of error.

There are no standards for non corporate stores. Because like you said, theres usually one or two people. Definitely no shift supervisors and rarely a lead. There is no one I can go to talk about how disgusting this store can be, because the lead doesn't care. The grocery store manager does not care. The district manager? Doesn't care. So I gave up on trying to keep stuff clean. But this stuff wouldnt fly at a corporate store, not for years.

Would I feel hurt if I was in this conservation? Yeah. But I get it. We sort of help make their job harder. All those tiktok baristas... none of them would have the time to do that at an actual starbucks. The ones who say its okay to do stupid shit and repeat that to customers..

I think they were being weirdly smug about it, but I honestly get where corporate baristas are coming from. I think he should've kept his thoughts to himself, but our jobs aren't that difficult in my opinion. Most of us don't deal with drivethrough or mobile order. We generally see less customers( at least for grocery store imo, university starbucks can be crazy)even on our peak. My biggest rushes were maybe dealing with 30 customers by myself for a hour, but those moments are rare. Meanwhile corporate stores will be swamped with orders all day long every day.

Wow, condescending much.

Literally it’s so reversed for me, I came from a stand alone to a licensed and they be so rude about it sometimes

When your life revolves around Starbucks you’ll behave the way that man did