Hello everyone, I hope you’re all excited for Thanksgiving coming up soon! Because of this year’s pandemic, I know holidays this year are going to be spent a little differently; most of us are probably going to only spend them with our direct families, and avoid seeing a lot of other members of our friends and families. Just like how we’ve had to adjust our personal lives due to the pandemic, Starbucks has also adjusted how the stores operate to make sure our customers and baristas can stay safe and healthy. So, for this week, I thought I would share some of the ways Starbucks has created a safe, yet still welcoming environment for our baristas and customers.

Masking

At Starbucks, it is not only just a state and county policy to wear a mask at all times in my store, it is also mandated by the company. This means that at any Starbucks location across the country every barista and customer must wear a mask to enter, and it must be worn properly and throughout the entire duration of their stay in the store. If customers refuse to wear a mask, they will not be allowed to enter the store to ensure the safety of other customers and baristas.

While this is true, there is one loophole to the masking policy. Starbucks, while they have mandated customers must wear masks when inside the store, does not mandate that customers must wear one when coming through the drive-thru. Because of this, my coworkers and I did a small statistical study and found that on most given nights around 60-70% of customers do not wear masks in the drive-thru at our location. We only counted customers who were in the driver’s seat since they were the only person who would not be considered socially distanced and this percentage was still incredibly high. While many customers don’t see the meaning in wearing a mask through the drive-thru, I can assure you that it is very nice when customers do since it tells us as workers that you care about our health as well. My apologies for the small side-tangent, but it’s just a friendly reminder to stay masked and be safe especially during this holiday season!

COVID-19 Screening

Before clocking into every shift, for the safety of the store baristas must have their temperature taken and complete a questionnaire to determine if they are allowed to start their shift. This questionnaire ensures that baristas have not been exposed to COVID-19 and if a barista even has any symptoms of any illness they are immediately sent home. We also have to sign a sheet saying that our temperature was below that of a fever and that we completed the questionnaire, so that our managers know we did them and have proper documentation if needed.

Cleaning and Protection

And of course, Starbucks has completely amped up its cleaning and protection procedures to make sure customers and baristas can interact without any safety issues. First, we set up many plexiglass dividers at the front registers and also at the handoff plane where customers pick up their drinks. We also have to follow a thirty minute timer that when it goes off, we all must wash our hands thoroughly before returning to whatever we were doing. To ensure the store is extremely clean, on each day-part (morning, mid-shift, night) there are cleaning tasks that must be completed; these tasks can range from anything to cleaning out the sinks, ovens, and drains, to scrubbing out the ice-bins, fridges, and pastry case. And lastly, we have closed our seating area until further notice, so our café is only open for grab an go to prevent the virus from being spread by air.

Another huge implementation is the procedure if a partner has, or has been exposed to COVID-19. Contract-tracing starts immediately, and anyone who has been in contact with the partner must also quarantine. The partner themselves must receive two negative COVID-19 test results to be able to even return to work. As for the store itself, once it is found that a partner has the virus, a professional cleaning team is called in and they spend the entire day cleaning the store; it must remain closed for at least 24 hours before it can open back up again.

Being a barista, I’m very grateful for the measures my company has taken to protect its workers and customers. This pandemic has been a crazy time for everyone, and having that sense of security is wonderful amongst all of this uncertainty. Thank you so much for reading, and remember to stay safe and healthy this holiday season!