What the Hefei Starbucks Incident Says About Street Coffee

A Starbucks store in Hefei, Anhui Province, came under criticism after staff retracted the outdoor parasols and moved the seats inside on a rainy day. A video posted online showed two customers sheltering in the outdoor seating area of the Wuyue Plaza store in Feidong. Staff said the waterlogged parasols were a safety hazard, but gave no reason for removing the chairs.

Online reaction split between support for the safety decision and criticism of the loss of human touch. The episode raises a wider question for street coffee operators: how outdoor seating is managed on bad-weather days, and what staff should tell customers. Front Street Coffee has followed the discussion as part of its coverage of coffee culture and store service detail.

Recently, a Starbucks store in Hefei, Anhui Province, was questioned by a customer in a video for "shooing people away" after it retracted its outdoor parasols and removed the seats on a rainy day. The incident quickly sparked heated discussion online: some agreed with the store's safety considerations, while others felt that removing the chairs was lacking in human touch. The Starbucks store manager explained to the mall that the parasols posed a safety hazard after absorbing water, but did not explain why all the chairs had to be moved back inside. As coffee lovers, we might as well take this incident as a starting point to discuss the balance between outdoor space management and customer experience at coffee shops. Front Street Coffee has always paid attention to the detailed service in coffee consumption scenarios, and this article takes you through the whole incident and the views of various parties.

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According to Zonglan News, recently a netizen in Hefei, Anhui Province uploaded a video on social media, saying that she and her friend were driven away while sheltering from the rain under a large parasol outside a Starbucks store.

The video publisher described that on the morning of December 23, she and her friend were resting in the outdoor seating area of the Starbucks store at Wuyue Plaza in Feidong, Hefei, Anhui, without entering the store to make a purchase. At the time, it was drizzling, and the rain gradually intensified. To shelter from the rain, her friend opened one of the large parasols that Starbucks had placed in front of the store.

However, shortly after the parasol was opened, a Starbucks employee came out of the store and told them that the green large parasol in the outdoor seating area was only for sunshade and could not block rain, then immediately retracted the opened parasol and moved all the seats in the outdoor area back inside the store.

The person involved responded that she could understand the employee's explanation that the "parasol is not suitable for sheltering from rain." In addition, there is a covering structure above the store entrance, so even without the parasol, they could still sit on the chairs and take shelter under the overhead cover. But the employee removed all the chairs without any explanation, which she said was unacceptable, and she believed this action was "shooing people away," making her feel very uncomfortable with the store's approach.

After the video was published, it attracted a large number of netizens to watch. Some netizens pointed out that the fabric of the green parasols in front of Starbucks is not waterproof, and after getting wet in the rain, it absorbs water and leaks, so it is indeed not suitable for blocking rain.

Some netizens also said that in strong winds and heavy rain, an opened parasol could easily be blown over and injure passersby. Therefore, in their view, retracting all outdoor parasols on rainy days is a reasonable measure for Starbucks stores to avoid safety risks. Starbucks employees also explained in the comments that retracting parasols on rainy days complies with store management regulations and was not intentionally driving customers away as the video shooter believed.

However, some netizens disagreed with this explanation, believing that it is understandable for employees to retract the parasols for fear that rain-soaked parasols might hit people sheltering from the rain, but as the person involved said, the chairs in the outdoor seating area actually did not need to be specially moved back inside. Starbucks employees moving the chairs away while people were sheltering from the rain was not "humanized" enough.

In response to this matter, a Zonglan News reporter contacted the Starbucks store in the video. The staff member who answered the phone said they were not very familiar with the situation. Then a person in charge took the phone, said they had no right to answer the reporter's questions, and hung up. The staff at Wuyue Plaza in Feidong, where the store is located, after learning of the matter from the reporter, said they would report the situation to the relevant departments and ask the Starbucks store for the full story.

About an hour later, the Wuyue Plaza staff replied that the Starbucks store manager explained to the mall that because the parasols posed a safety hazard after absorbing water, the employees retracted them and reminded customers not to sit under the parasols to shelter from the rain on rainy days. However, as for why the chairs were removed, the Starbucks store manager did not explain to the mall.

Image source: Internet

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The above content is compiled by CoffeeHunters, a coffee news website.