Lounge

Starbucks maintains a limited syrup offering of typically 8 flavors during any given season. They Baristas are constantly trained, retrained, and trained some more. I'm not sure how it's run where you're at, but out here in WA Hughes would personally come in and secret shop your store. I shift supervised the most profitable store west of the Mississippi with a winter staff of about 45 people and an average on hand staff of 10-15 people. We had two people who made crappy coffee and I wouldn't put on a machine. Having said that, Varissimo's do take a lot of the effort out of coffee making vs a La Mazzoracco like most drive ups use. The biggest issue I find with Sbux is that when it's busy people stop paying attention to their shot times and pull crappy shots of coffee. I find they're more consistent than what I get at small drive ups though. Having said that, I've gone native and mostly go to the locals to support the smaller business.