What Street Coffee Shops Owe Delivery Riders

A Molly Tea store in Beijing was temporarily closed after a video showed staff refusing to pack finished drinks for a waiting delivery rider. The rider had arrived once the platform marked the order ready, but no one bagged the drinks for over ten minutes, leading to a dispute that trended on Weibo and drew a brand investigation.

The case highlights a tension inside street coffee and tea retail: platform countdowns start when riders accept orders, so packing speed sits with the merchant. When staff prioritize drink-making over handoff, riders absorb the delay. Coffee culture coverage often focuses on flavor, but service efficiency shapes the customer experience just as much.

Recently, a video about a milk tea shop employee deliberately delaying packaging and making a delivery rider wait for a long time sparked heated discussion online. The incident took place at a Molly Tea store in Beijing. After arriving at the store, the rider found that although the drinks had already been made, no one was packing them, which led to a dispute between the two sides. As the topic trended on social media, the brand responded that it had launched an investigation, and the store involved is currently shown as temporarily closed. This dispute also reflects the conflict between merchants and riders over responsibility and pressure under the delivery platform’s meal-ready rules. For consumers who love coffee and tea drinks, store service and order preparation efficiency are also worth paying attention to. Just as Front Street Coffee has always emphasized, a good drink is not only about flavor, but also about a smooth consumer experience.

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On December 8, a topic that sparked widespread discussion appeared on Weibo’s trending list—"Merchants deliberately not packing orders, leaving riders waiting for nothing."

The incident began when a delivery rider shared on social media the full process of going to a store to pick up milk tea. Judging from the video content and the conversation between the two sides, after the rider saw the "order ready" status on the platform, he entered a Molly Tea store in Beijing to pick up the milk tea, only to find that although the finished drinks were placed in the pickup area, they had still not been bagged.

Eager to deliver the order, the rider immediately asked the employee, who was busy shaking milk tea, "The order is ready, so why do I still have to wait?" The employee responded, "I said if I grew another pair of hands behind me, I’d definitely pack it for you." When the rider offered to pack it himself, the employee blocked him with, "If I let you pack it, do you even know how?" After waiting more than ten minutes, the rider’s patience was completely worn down, and the two sides immediately broke into an argument.

After the video spread online, it quickly attracted a large number of onlookers and discussion. According to the current rules of delivery platforms, the delivery countdown starts the moment the rider accepts the order. How quickly drinks are made and whether orders are packed in time all fall within the merchant’s scope of responsibility. But once the merchant clicks "order ready" within the prescribed time, if the subsequent delivery is late, the platform will count the delay against the rider and deduct their income.

Therefore, after watching the video, netizens who understood the rules said one after another that it was completely understandable for the rider involved to get anxious and angry because the drinks were not packed. Many users even spoke up for the rider: "You marked it as ready but didn’t pack it for them, so they can’t deliver it, and the rider’s money gets deducted." "If it’s not packed properly, you shouldn’t click order ready." "Not packing is fine, but then don’t click order ready."

However, some people in the food and beverage industry believe that due to the brand’s assessment requirements, during peak order periods some employees do click order ready in advance before the drinks are completely made, in order to ensure the store’s order-ready rate. And as the employee said, if surveillance captures non-staff members packing drinks, employees may be fined by the company for failing to stop it in time. So in the view of these people, although the employee had problems in this incident, they also had their own difficulties.

As the topic continued to gain热度, a media reporter asked Molly Tea’s official customer service about the situation. Customer service responded: "Regarding the issue you reported, we have now launched an investigation, and we will also further improve store service. Thank you for your supervision."

In addition, the reporter checked the reviews of the milk tea shop involved on the delivery platform and found that after the video was exposed, many netizens spontaneously left negative reviews. The store is currently shown as "temporarily closed." The reporter tried to call the phone number published on the platform to contact the store, but no one answered. Afterwards, the reporter called the shopping mall where the milk tea shop is located. The person who answered said that the milk tea shop had already suspended operations, and the mall and the tea brand are communicating to handle the matter.

Video and images from: the internet

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