Our Strange Experience at Starbucks in South Korea

I’ve read that someone (in Expats Group) bought a to-go drink at Starbucks but he/she sat inside and then the staff kicked him/her out, and said “it’s a to-go cup and you have to go”

(Thai)
So I know there was a strange service at Starbucks somewhere in Korea. I didn’t know it’s a country wide policy. I thought people would get the right to sit there if they bought at least one drink to drink there, there were lots of people sitting there with one drink.

Today, my husband and I stopped into our local Starbucks and he got an iced drink and I got an ice green tea latte. Knowing that my husband would drink his drink very quickly, I ordered his “to drink” to drink there and mine “to go”… (So I thought, I can still sit with him because he had the right to sit here). About 1/2 way through his cold drink an employee came over and told us we had to leave. The employee told us my drink was made to go so we had to leave!

I was upset. Does it still happen to us? even we bought one drink to sit there?

I came back home and googled what went wrong in this country??? Then I found out about the plastic-cup ban in cafes in South Korea. So if they let the customers have the plastic cup (to-go cups) in their shop, the manager has to pay the fine(???)

But it’s only in Korean, and we can’t read the KOREAN SIGNS!, also the staff has a lack of English speaking, all he could say “you to go, you leave!” so it turned out that they were pretty rude to us who sitting there as their customers.

Now I get to that point, why they tried very hard to kick me out if I have their own plastic cup in their own shop…

I shared this in Every expat in Korea group. This group held more than 44k members (not only Expats but there are some English-Korean as well) I got both good and bad comments back.

Some bad comments showing useless information and bad karma so I will pass about it and NOT share those comments.

But some comments are very useful.  Like it’s Not only Starbucks doing this, most of the coffee shops in Korea too. Some comments told me that you can order to drink here first and if you couldn’t finish your drink and you had to leave, you can ask them to put your drink to TO GO for you.
Or you can sit or leave if you bring the recycle cup or tumbler for your drink.

I didn’t mean to post this to make fun or tease Korean people. I have many Korean friends that I shared about this and they seem to understand my feeling because they know me.

Now I’m feeling about this country in a better way – a better World, I recycle too.

FY: For Ladies, try  Woman expat in Korea, this group is more peaceful and more informative!

And thanks for all the comments about my artwork LOL…

Cr: This what I found out after I came back from Starbucks shop,  “After plastic-cup ban in cafes, some Koreans are ‘fed up’ with the new rule” http://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20180816000659

FYI:  Starting Monday (Nov 26, 2018), Starbucks began stocking all of its stores with white paper straws, which is found during trials to be more popular than green ones.

Because…the year before, Starbucks Korea used 180 million plastic straws!

Starbucks will also remove the straws and stirring sticks it previously left out for customers and instead place them behind counters and only provide them on request. It will replace all plastic stirring sticks with wooden ones as well.

For us, paper straws are better for the environment, but they’re not a good “mouth feel” experience. About 10 minutes later the straw was soggy and falling apart.  So we learn to drink directly from our cups 🙂