[ClassicBob]

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ClassicBob,

NBA POSTERS REPRESENT!!! Good job with this thread. Hope you're not still pissed at me cuz I forgot you in that list of Mavericks homers that one time.

Hey, I'm a 2-3X/week Starbucks customer (Iced Chai Latte, sue me). I typically go in one in the Safeway by my place since I have a 1/2 mile commute to work. However, there are two standalone Starbucksesses a mile to the west and another couple a mile or two the other way.

Anyway, I've heard a stigma attached to the ones in grocery stores and what not, that they're not "real" Starbucks. Any thoughts that the product or talent level of baristas may be inferior at those? My drink is ridiculously easy to make so they get it right, but the employees are Safeway employees, not Starbucks employees, and their pastry selection is disappointingly slim as well. What have you heard?

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I'm going to reply to this because the one I worked at was in a safeway.

I started there when the starbucks was first put in. Since it was opened yet, we got a full week of training in the kiosk without having to deal with customers. We spent a full 40 hours with a starbucks trainer before the store was even opened.

All future employees we hired were trained with the same structure and testing as regular starbucks employees. We had regular and inspectors to make sure everything as up to starbucks code and all that jazz.

People think it's a lower version of starbucks, but it's really exactly the same, albeit with limited pastries. The drink menu is still the same.

The employees get shafted though. The safeway union benefits, by and large, are alot worse than the starbucks ones. We didn't get any perks at all. Plus we had to deal with twice as many secret shoppers (safeway and starbucks).

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Looks like traz pwned me on the licensed concepts.

Whatever.