Weird repetitive driving at Starbucks drive-thru
Discussion
Dear PHers - I need your help explaining the strangest driving I think I've ever seen:
Kirkcaldy Mitchelson Retail Park Starbucks Drive-Thru. A red Mazda and a white Peugeot repeatedly driving from the ordering station, to the collection window, stopping briefly (1-2 secs) at each and then driving round to start the process again. No other cars using the drive thru, and the inside of the Starbucks reasonably busy.
Once they had done 5-6 circuits they had my curiosity. Once they'd done it a dozen times I got bored and went into a shop for 15 mins. Came out, and they are still driving repeatedly anti clockwise, in formation, same speed, pauses at the windows. They were humans driving normal cars, otherwise I was convinced they were autonomous cars in some kind of repeating fault loop.
Went in to two more shops (total 45 mins) and as we finished our shop, they did more circuits then one stopped for a longer period, collected a passenger and drove off, the second parked up for 1-2mins then drove away.
I wasn't drinking, a friend was with me, we just cannot fathom why anyone would spend 45 mins continually driving from ordering window to collection window, and repeat.
Does the Starbucks ordering system go wrong and employees need to drive a car through to re-set it? Please let that be the case otherwise I've just watched two lemmings do 60+ circuits of a drive through!!!!!????
Kirkcaldy Mitchelson Retail Park Starbucks Drive-Thru. A red Mazda and a white Peugeot repeatedly driving from the ordering station, to the collection window, stopping briefly (1-2 secs) at each and then driving round to start the process again. No other cars using the drive thru, and the inside of the Starbucks reasonably busy.
Once they had done 5-6 circuits they had my curiosity. Once they'd done it a dozen times I got bored and went into a shop for 15 mins. Came out, and they are still driving repeatedly anti clockwise, in formation, same speed, pauses at the windows. They were humans driving normal cars, otherwise I was convinced they were autonomous cars in some kind of repeating fault loop.
Went in to two more shops (total 45 mins) and as we finished our shop, they did more circuits then one stopped for a longer period, collected a passenger and drove off, the second parked up for 1-2mins then drove away.
I wasn't drinking, a friend was with me, we just cannot fathom why anyone would spend 45 mins continually driving from ordering window to collection window, and repeat.
Does the Starbucks ordering system go wrong and employees need to drive a car through to re-set it? Please let that be the case otherwise I've just watched two lemmings do 60+ circuits of a drive through!!!!!????
I wonder if they have some kind of loyalty scheme that can be abused in some way by doing this.
Seems like a lot of effort to earn a free coffee, but then they are about £50 in Starbucks
Other possibility is the store gaming their metrics, maybe they have a metric that tracks average wait per customer which counts cars even if they don't buy anything so off duty staff or friends are being asked to loop the drive through so they can pretend their service is less s
tty than it really is.
Seems like a lot of effort to earn a free coffee, but then they are about £50 in Starbucks
Other possibility is the store gaming their metrics, maybe they have a metric that tracks average wait per customer which counts cars even if they don't buy anything so off duty staff or friends are being asked to loop the drive through so they can pretend their service is less s
tty than it really is.Other possibility is the store gaming their metrics, maybe they have a metric that tracks average wait per customer which counts cars even if they don't buy anything so off duty staff or friends are being asked to loop the drive through so they can pretend their service is less s
tty than it really is.[/quote]
This seems the most plausible as one of the cars picked up an employee when they finished. The cars essentially drove in a neat formation, drove carefully and consistently, which is what sparked my interest. Perhaps once they want to move on from Starbucks they can become Police Motorcyclists as that is the only other time I've seen such calm, consistent, dutiful formation driving!
TVRBRZ said:
Other possibility is the store gaming their metrics, maybe they have a metric that tracks average wait per customer which counts cars even if they don't buy anything so off duty staff or friends are being asked to loop the drive through so they can pretend their service is less stty than it really is.
It’s probably the correct answer. I’m relatively local to the OP (Dunfermline) 10 miles away, and the Starbucks drive thru there won an award for their wait times. It’s likely that the Kirkcaldy branch is using underhand tactics to improve their stats. tty than it really is.Scuba_steve said:
It’s probably the correct answer. I’m relatively local to the OP (Dunfermline) 10 miles away, and the Starbucks drive thru there won an award for their wait times. It’s likely that the Kirkcaldy branch is using underhand tactics to improve their stats.
Oooh. The Wee Fifer equivalent of the Ice Cream Wars. Dunfermline vs Kirkcaldy Starbucks....it will be Mocha Lattes at dawn next!
Scuba_steve said:
It’s probably the correct answer. I’m relatively local to the OP (Dunfermline) 10 miles away, and the Starbucks drive thru there won an award for their wait times. It’s likely that the Kirkcaldy branch is using underhand tactics to improve their stats.
In an era when our EPOS would only dialup once a day to report stock levels, my manager would artificially book out key items of stock at the end of day, then book it back in the next. The basic warehouse algorithm would send us the extra stock. He did this because we could sell the lot once the sale prices kicked in, and no stores had enough. When the company figured it out he was fired...
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