REUTERS/Mike Blake
- A TikTok video shows Starbucks baristas reacting to a long line of order stickers.
- A barista said the video was shot "10 minutes after opening," adding the hashtag #ihatecapitalism.
- She said that her store had opened at 8 a.m., later than usual, because of a staff shortage.
- See more stories on Insider's business page.
A video posted to TikTok shows a Starbucks store apparently flooded with orders within minutes of opening.
The video shows a long line of about 25 order stickers on a countertop. The barista recording the video is laughing, while others can be heard saying "oh my God" in the background as a staff member continues to line up orders.
Barista Ria, who goes by @a_problem_like_maria on TikTok, posted the video last week with text reading: "this was literally 10 minutes after opening."
She said in the comments that her store had opened at 8 a.m. because it was operating reduced hours during a staff shortage, which may explain why it was so busy straight after opening. Starbucks stores typically open at around 6 a.m..
She added the hashtag #ihatecapitalism.
Ria said in the comments that she had to pull all the stickers out of the machine "because our other sticker machine was down." The stickers were for both mobile and in-store orders, she said.
Starbucks said it could not meet Insider's deadline for comment for this article.
Some baristas say they're swamped with mobile orders
People are flocking back to Starbucks as the US economy reopens. Orders are getting bigger and more expensive - and people are placing more of them, too.
Drive-thru orders account for almost half of all Starbucks' order, but customers turned to the Starbucks app too, which lets them order in advance and without face-to-face interaction.
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Some baristas previously told Insider this had left them swamped with mobile orders, which now make up more than a quarter of Starbucks' US transactions. Some stores lack capacity to keep up with demand, and some staff at these stores are struggling, they said.
At the time, a Starbucks spokesperson told Insider that this was "not illustrative of the customer and partner experience in a majority of our stores."
Baristas previously told Insider that they get busiest at the breakfast rush between 7 a.m. and 10 a.m., when people order coffees on their way to the office. One barista in North Carolina said that mobile orders start trickling through as soon as her store opens at 5 a.m..
Starbucks said last year that Americans were ordering later in the day as more people worked from home during the pandemic.