I work at a drive-thru not far from a middle school and a high school, and we are the only Starbucks in their area. Every day around 8am, 12pm, and 4pm we get a rush of at least 40 teenagers in our lobby. They disappear as fast as they show up.

Earlier today, during our lunch rush, I was on bar and a high schooler came up to the mobile handoff plane and took two drinks that I knew had different names on them. This in itself isn’t super unusual. I looked her in the eyes and thanked her, have a good day or whatever, and she left. Five minutes later someone came through drive to pick up one of the two drinks she had grabbed. When we’re slammed, down partners, and Im solo barring through the rush, it’s super frustrating to have to remake anything. Especially something I know was just stolen.

I’ve heard that we’ve been having problems with the teens just coming in w out ordering and grabbing whatever drink is at the hand off plane, but this is the first time I saw it first hand. I asked my shift what we could do to prevent this, and all she said was that the B2 partner needs to be making eye contact while customers are grabbing their drinks (???? She is a very wonderful lady but this advice was jarring to me tbh, especially because I was on solo bar when this happened).

I was wondering if y’all have any advice on how to prevent/circumvent this?

For context, our handoff plane is at the end of the bar and is completely open, meaning we don’t have any plexiglass anywhere near it.

TL:DR having problems getting mobile drinks stolen at my store, looking for solutions