Starbucks

On a recent trip to Liverpool. I called in this Starbucks store having been impressed on multiple occasions with the staff, location and quality of coffee, however little did I expect for this store to become more like an airport.
The queuing situation here was very poor and far from well-​managed, I was queuing for about 20 minutes, just to get served and was very disappointing that they wasn’t even anyone running down, to take my order, meaning they could not even be making my drinks as I waited.
I ordered a Gingerbread latte, to enjoy my first red cup of this season (November 2015) and was delighted to try the gingerbread cream, however despite confirming they had it, they didn’t put it on my drink, I had to settle for the regular cream instead, and with the queues still long, and the baristas looking like they were struggling to come with mass queues and customers, I felt like I had to settle, and the customer should never had to settle for 2^nd best.
At the till as well, I also struggled, I picked up a new festive card, and asked to activate it, the barista struggled and after about a minute trying to put the money on my card, she told me it wasn’t activated and then we struggled even more at the till, for her to put the money on, knock it off my bill, and activate it, which really shouldn’t be a problem!
The quality of my coffee was poor, especially considering the waiting time and price charged, which is again a shame as it certainly wasn’t up to Starbucks’ standards and definitely is a sad case of the branch struggling with demand and going downhill since my visit in October 2014.

I am not a keen drinker of coffee but I do enjoy the odd cold drink on a warm summer’s day to quench my thirst.
Rather than the typical soft drink of pop or Tropicana, I would tend to usually go for a smoothie, in this case it was a strawberries and cream Frappuccino (blended milky ice beverage) topped with cream. This was actually the first time I bought a smoothie from Starbucks and neither did I find it good nor bad. In fact, it was more sweeter and less pure than I expected. I don’t even think there were any real strawberries involved in the mix therefore I had that familiar artificial taste. Everything else about it was great — the coldness, the thickness and the look but the taste didn’t meet my expectations. However, it was better than one of the versions I had at Caffe Nero but nothing beats Bold Street’s ‘Brew’ smoothies which I found to be exceptional.
If you’re going to Starbucks, you’d better stick to its coffee. Afterall, they’re not renown for their smoothies.