Starbucks Passion

A friendly store

Above: Starbucks store at 450 Yonge St. Toronto.

I touch on the whole ‘being an integral part of the community’ aspect of Starbucks’ mandate a lot, but I just can’t stop thinking about some of the really nice things Starbucks does in each community they come in contact with.

I don’t just regurgitate corporate jargon or reiterate Starbucks’ core values; rather, I speak to the positive experiences I’ve had with this influential corporation and why I appreciate the things they stand for.

With that being said, in this post I want to talk about a really sincere encounter I had with the partners and manager in my favourite Starbucks store. The store is located at Yonge and College in downtown Toronto; 450 Yonge St. to be exact. Check out an older post I wrote about this store: My New Third Place.

Every year my office partakes in an extensive United Way campaign that runs throughout October. Our goal this year was to raise $24, 000 for United Way. That’s a lot of money and each year we’ve been able to surpass our yearly target. We will be tallying our total amount of monetary donations next week and as it sits, we are very close to our goal.

But enough of how admirable my organization is – let’s talk about what the 450 Yonge St. store did for us and our campaign.

We kicked off our campaign on October 12 with a launch event that featured our senior executives serving coffee to all employees. Most of the time, the coffee we use for such events is stale, office- brewed, coffee-like sludge of some variety. The sentiment is always good but the coffee often lacks quality. But this year was different. We wanted quality coffee to kick the campaign off with a delicious bang.

Starbucks came to the rescue.

Before the event, I went into the 450 Yonge St. store and spoke with the manager about our campaign. She was all ears and was visibly interested in our United Way campaign. Before even asking if they could possibly provide the coffee, she offered to support our launch with a freshly brewed 100 cup urn of Pike Place roast coffee.

I was amazed and thankfully accepted her offer. My coworkers were enthused and finally, they understood where my passion for Starbucks comes from.

The morning of the campaign launch

I walked into the store at 8 a.m. to grab my morning Americano and the urn of coffee for our event. Before I even asked the barista for the urn, she welcomed me and pointed to the back of the store where the urn was waiting. Not only did they provide the coffee, they provided the table cloth, cups, lids, stir sticks, sugar, sweeteners, milk and cream.

What a nice little package to bring back to the office.

I thanked all the partners and later wrote a nice letter to the store on behalf of my organization. We were all very thankful for what this Starbucks provided. Oh and the coffee was perfect. Everyone had a blast that morning.

What it all means

I’m sure managers and partners are encouraged to donate coffee to such events on a semi-regular basis. But the diligence, passion and generosity displayed by this store was nothing short of breathtaking. They could have just given us the urn and said: “bring it back when you’re done and you’re welcome.” But they did more than that; they proved that Starbucks is indeed an integral part of the community. They provided ‘legendary service.’

Thank you 450 Yonge St. partners. You made our event a huge success and reaffirmed my passion and dedication to the corporation.

On a side note - Our North Toronto office also kicked off a United Way campaign that same day. Their local Starbucks provided the refreshments as well. Thank you 2555 Victoria Park Ave. Starbucks.

On another side note – Many thanks to Winter for giving me permission to use his picture of the 450 Yonge St. store.

Check out his website: http://www.starbuckseverywhere.net/

And follow him on twitter: @winterene