I hate to say it, but water is free (including ice).

When people ask for more than water/ice, then they are using actual products. My store used to run out of the various berries because people (mainly teens) drained us. It also prevents people from abusing our system. They can’t add syrups without paying for it.

I do agree that it’s also corporate greed. They can easily add a button that says “water with berry inclusions” and charge them for whatever amount of money.

If they get upset, then they can go to a different store or make their own raspberry water at home

according to Starbucks,

>When ringing beverages, it is important to always ring up a base beverage as we do not sell modifiers only as beverages. i.e. If a customer requests a water with syrup, inclusions and ice, ring as follows:
>
>Select size, select custom iced tea, sub requested syrup, no black tea base, add inclusion

Store Resources (app) > Coffee & Beverage > Beverage Resource Manual > Beverage Serving > Beverage Orders > Charging Customers for Beverages

I think the main thing here is make sure you do it correctly to help your baristas out at other stores. If one store allows it then we will see the “the other starbucks” does it reply.

Is it stupid? Sure. Is it policy? Yes. Help your fellow partners out. That way they don’t get chewed out for following policy.

This has been a point of contention for years. The correct way is to ring it up as a custom tea.

But you are absolutely right for being confused because THERE’S NO TEA in it so it doesn’t make sense! And to make it even worse, the customer can see that you’re ringing in “tea” and they’re very likely to get upset about it because now they think that YOU’RE the one who is overcharging them and so they get mad at YOU and call you dumb and accuse you of not knowing how to do your job. And the problem is that even though the customer is wrong to do that, it’s also understandable that they would be upset because they’re being charged for tea when they didn’t order any tea. If I went to a restaurant and only ordered fries but also got charged for a burger I would understandably be upset, and no amount of “oh, well the rule is that if you only order fries we have to also charge you for a burger” would not be a good enough explanation.

Corporate could easily just update the system so that we could actually ring up what the customer ordered “water with berries” and it would charge them the right amount. But instead they choose to have us ring it up in a way that sets up customers to get upset at us.

But yeah, the only explanation for why we ring up a custom tea for something that is just water with berries in it is really just “because corporate says so.”

Do they pay you enough to care this much? Starbucks isn't an identity. We just give them their drinks, take their money, and do what the corporate Overlords tell us to do

Fr ! A lady came through w her pet duck and I ended up just not charging her for it .. I know we should but idk 4.95 or whatever it is is a bit much. If it was someone who came regularly than yes but like I never get water w berries ordered

doesn’t really matter if you don’t agree with it, just do your job 🤷‍♀️

tea is just stuff in water, all it's ever been.


we charge for that.

Been this way for a long time.

Yeah idek but this shit is why I hate being on register. I hate making customers mad at me for corporate greed cause starbucks loves to nickel and dime customers.

Well the whole time I’ve been working here we also rang it up like that. I was told it was because Inclusion are built into the prices of the refreshers so it doesn’t matter if they want extra in those drinks. But like a bag cost like $20 each so like we can’t be selling water with like 10 scoops for $1

It's stupid, but unfortunately we have to :/ I wish we could ring it in for inclusion costs and not a whole custom tea though

Replies here are full of bootlickers lol