Starbucks China Responds: You Can Use Our Restrooms Without Making a Purchase!

Last week, Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz, speaking at The New York Times Washington Policy Forum, said Starbucks might restrict non-customers' access to its restrooms.

Howard noted that Starbucks stores serve 100 million customers daily, and that the constant stream of non-patrons treating store restrooms as public facilities creates safety hazards for Starbucks employees and customers alike.

He added that whether it's customers or employees walking through the door, the company owes them a safe environment — and that limiting restroom access for non-customers would also ease employees' workload.

At the forum, Schultz called employees' mental health the "number one problem" Starbucks currently faces, describing the nationwide mental health crisis among staff as serious, urgent, and worsening.

To address it, Schultz said Starbucks needs to train employees, implement stricter in-store policies, cut unnecessary workload, and further protect the safety of staff and customers. Whether Starbucks restrooms can remain open to the public, then, is no longer certain.

Starbucks adopted its open-restroom policy after the 2018 Philadelphia incident — and problems surfaced almost immediately. Free access attracted large numbers of homeless people and drug users. According to Business Insider, the restroom at one Seattle Starbucks was frequently covered in blood, with needles and drug bags turning up from time to time, exposing employees to real risk of infection.

Public Reaction and Debate

The story set off heated debate among Chinese netizens, too. Many pointed out that neither McDonald's nor KFC bars non-customers from their restrooms! Others felt that for an international brand to openly discuss restricting non-paying visitors looked a bit narrow-minded.

Others argued that store restrooms exist for customers in the first place: letting non-purchasers use them is a courtesy; declining to do so is well within a company's rights. Still others noted that public restrooms in Europe and America often charge fees while Starbucks has always been free — so this measure is probably aimed only at those Western markets.

Starbucks China's Response

On the news that Starbucks restrooms might no longer be open to non-customers, Starbucks China replied in the comments section: "That news about Starbucks potentially considering restricting restroom use for safety reasons refers to the American market and does not include our domestic stores. So, it doesn't affect everyone coming to stores to use restrooms!"

Final Thoughts

Whether Starbucks opens its restrooms to non-patrons, and whether consumers stop visiting as a result, is a free, legitimate choice on both sides. Starbucks, McDonald's, or KFC — they are restaurants and cafés at bottom, and their restrooms exist to serve visiting customers.

Keeping them open to everyone for free is these brands' way of offering convenience rather than haggling over every little thing. But if open access genuinely adds to employees' workload or creates hygiene and health risks, then closing them to non-customers is perfectly reasonable.

Compared with Europe and America, China's public restroom infrastructure is well developed, and usage of Starbucks restrooms here genuinely isn't comparable — as a rule, people rarely borrow a restaurant's restroom unless they truly need to.

Image source: Internet

FrontStreet Coffee Recommendation

However the restroom debate settles, the surest way to earn a café's hospitality is still a good cup in hand. If you're just getting into specialty coffee, FrontStreet Coffee recommends starting with these approachable beans:

Ethiopia: FrontStreet natural-process Huakui and FrontStreet washed Guodingding Cooperative. Ethiopia is Africa's largest coffee producer and the universally recognized birthplace of coffee, with varieties named mostly for regions and cooperatives — the Yirgacheffe and Sidama zones above all. Yirgacheffe beans are predominantly washed and subdivided by cooperative: FrontStreet washed Guodingding is the classic representative, with jasmine florals, lemon acidity, and berry tones. Sidama shines in natural processing — FrontStreet Sidama Huakui is traditionally sun-dried, offering berries, florals, jackfruit, sweet melon, and honey.

Brazil: FrontStreet Cerrado Red Bourbon and FrontStreet Fazenda Rainha. The world's top producer still yields plenty of high-quality coffee: sun-exposed planting ripens cherries fast, giving soft beans, gentle acidity, good sweetness, and a fine, smooth, balanced cup. The Cerrado house bean is tasty and affordable, with cream, peanut, and cocoa notes; Fazenda Rainha grows rare Yellow Bourbon higher up, adding butter, melon seeds, macadamia, and almond aromas plus a sugarcane sweetness — thick and silky with or without milk.

Indonesia: FrontStreet Lintong Mandheling and FrontStreet PWN Golden Mandheling. Wet-hulled processing — invented to suit Indonesia's unpredictable rains and local economics — gives Mandheling its unique character: richer and smoother than most, with herbal and spice tones, perfect for those who dislike acidity. For a higher grade, the PWN Golden Mandheling undergoes three rounds of hand sorting plus machine sorting for the lowest defect rate, producing an exceptionally clean, smooth cup with clear woody and caramel notes.

China Yunnan: FrontStreet Yunnan Arabica (small-bean) and FrontStreet 2013 Yunnan Typica. China's specialty coffee centers on Yunnan Province (Hainan's hot, low-lying coast cannot grow arabica). The Baoshan-grown washed small-bean offers traditional nut and chocolate flavors, soft and balanced; the 2013 Typica, an ancient arabica variety grown at 1,300 meters, is cleaner still — medium roast, with hazelnut, dried apricot, black tea, caramel, and ripe plum aromatics.