This past week, Starbucks rolled out a new policy, taking many patrons by surprise. Instead of paper and plastic cups with printed-on labels, the coffee franchise is returning to their practice of dine-in dishware and to-go cups with personalized notes.
This change not only promotes the company’s sustainability goals to cut emissions in half by 2030, but also brings back the sense of local coffee shop atmosphere that the original Starbucks provided. While having Starbucks as an option of fast and easy coffee has been helpful for customers, the company is shifting back to their original goal of providing community. These changes are a big shift from the previous few years, as the response to Covid-19 changed all the policies, but it is more a return to pre-covid policies, continuing with the mission of the company, as Starbucks stated in an online press release.
Genna Christie ’‘27 is currently a student worker at the Rock City Starbucks. She said she was excited about the changes being made to the policy, even though it creates more work for baristas as a whole. “It makes it more difficult, but it creates a better space for a community to get to know our customers a little bit more.”
There is also a delightful impact of this new policy – free refills for dine-in orders. Christie remarked, “We’re also doing refills with dishware stuff here. For free, but they're also like there are some pretty strict guidelines to those.” She then remarked that there have been cases of patrons leaving the store and then trying to come back and get a free refill. That will not be tolerated.
Starbucks baristas are also returning to their practice of doodling and leaving personalized notes on the to-go cups. Christie said that this will “100% make it easier for them to get to know the customers and make the atmosphere better” at the Rock City Starbucks. “And it helps us with our regulars too.”
These changes at the Rock City Starbucks help create a much more cozy atmosphere for studying, so if Starbucks coffee is your jam, sip your latte from a ceramic mug and study away.