Barista Dean Redmond took to TikTok to share his annoyance over a recent interaction with a Starbucks’ customer, who visited his workplace because the local Starbucks was shut due to a road closure.
The customer was one of many to visit a regular coffee shop expecting the menu to be exactly like Starbucks, including drinks that only the chain creates, said Redmond.
“Anyone who works at Dunkin’ or Starbucks gets my sincerest apologies, because we’ve been getting a lot of your crazy regulars since the place down the road is closed,” said Redmond in a video with over 400,000 views online.
Nitro Cold Brew is a Starbucks-designed drink that is infused with nitrogen to give it a sweet flavor without needing sugar or cream.
The customer attempted to order a Nitro Cold Brew with coconut milk, only to get angry when told the coffee shop doesn’t serve the Starbucks drink, as well as being out of coconut milk. Instead, she accepted an oat milk iced coffee, the closest thing on the menu for most shops, but upon receiving it, said Redmond, complained that it was too watered down and asked for it to be made with espresso.
“If you work in a small town coffee shop, we don’t just have iced espresso made, so I had to make it and put ice cubes in it to cool it down, and then I put the oat milk and the caramel and I gave it to her,” he explained.
The customer once more complained about the iced espresso being watered down, despite the method being the same as the one used at Starbucks. After refusing to pay for anything so far, she then ordered a hot caramel macchiato, only to note: “They just do this so much better at Starbucks,” when trying it.
The customer complained when the coffee shop tried to charge her $1 for using non-dairy milk, claiming inaccurately that Starbucks doesn’t charge extra. “I don’t even want this and I’m only going to Starbucks,” she vowed, after calling the store’s manager.
Newsweek has contacted Starbucks and Redmond for comment.
It’s no secret that independent coffee stores aren’t usually fans of the big chains running the game, and the comments left on Redmond’s video just served as further evidence of this.
“People don’t realize small town coffee shops don’t offer the same things as Starbucks,” wrote one user.
“You don’t know rude customers until you work at Starbucks,” joked one user.
“We claimed to not know Starbucks recipes, so we make people traditional macchiato with caramel. They hated it,” added another.
They wouldn’t be the first either. Earlier in the year, a barista went viral after explaining a similar interaction in which she served a customer a regular macchiato, after explaining the difference between them. The customer was still surprised by the stark difference between an actual macchiato and the Starbucks version.
“When I hand it to them, they go ’that’s not what I wanted’ and I say ‘do you want me to make you a Starbucks macchiato?’ and they say ‘yeah,’” said the barista in the viral clip.
