Dear UCC Starbucks,
I love Starbucks. I’ve been a Gold Card holder since you introduced the program, and I’ve extended my membership well into next year. Much of my allowance has gone to Starbucks, much to my parent’s dismay.
And yet, every time I have a caffeine craving (which as a student, is quite often) I find myself walking away from you. And there is a reason for that.
THE LINE.
I envy those who can spend 20+ minutes of their day waiting in a coffee line, I really do. I see them on campus with their cups, green straws taunting me, the little green siren logos grinning at me. And I wish that venti sized cup could be in my hand, but I just can’t bear to spend a quarter of my day waiting for you.
I wish things were different, of course. I wish your line didn’t stretch all the way to the entrance of the Spoke. I wish my order wasn’t consistently wrong when I actually did wait in your line. I would rather go without my much-needed caffeine kick, or dig for change in the cushions of the Mustang Lounge couches and spend less than five minutes in the Tim Horton’s express line than miss an entire class waiting for my grande green tea latte.
When I came to Western, they bragged about you: “We have two Starbucks right on campus!” Little did I know, one would be an absolute waste of time, and the other would be about 10,000 miles away in a (sinking) building full of people who can smell an outsider, so both options are less than ideal.
There are a lot of things that Western needs to fix, and I’m sure that managing the foot traffic for the UCC Starbucks is low on that list of priorities. But I know I won’t be waiting in that line any time soon.