Via iStockphoto / @binkbadd TikTok
A Starbucks customer returned a bacon and Gouda sandwich after opening it and being disappointed by the size of the bacon.
When you’re hungry, being served food that doesn’t meet your expectations can be nothing short of heartbreaking. And this woman, after receiving her underwhelming bacon and Gouda Starbucks sandwich, decided to speak out.
The video, which was filmed in her car, has amassed 103,200 views. Binkbadd (@binkbadd), who has 42,300 TikTok followers, was speaking to someone on the phone.
“This is crazy,” she tells them. She then removes the bun from her bacon and cheese Gouda, which was topped with three small-medium rashers of bacon.
Binkbadd tells the Starbucks drive-thru window server that she wants to use Apple Pay for her refund. As she does this, she also speaks to the woman on the phone. She then pings the card and returns the sandwich to them.
Subsequently, the TikToker returns to the drive-thru. She points out the image of the sandwich, saying, “That’s how it looks on screen.” The image shows a healthy amount of bacon in the sandwich. It pokes out at the sides.
She asks for a second cookie. As she does this, she jokes that there’s a “hole in [her] stomach where the sandwich was supposed to go.”
In reply, the worker says they’ll make her another sandwich. The TikToker thanks them. This causes the woman on the phone to laugh. When Binkbadd asks her friend what she is laughing at, she replies, “You gotta be stopped.”
The video ends with the TikToker receiving her new order and thanking the staff.
‘Most People Wouldn’t Pay That Price’
“Starbucks positions its brand to be above the typical coffee and breakfast stop such as McDonald’s or Burger King,” the TikToker said in a Instagram message to BroBible. “The menu illustrates what appears to be a quality product: Gouda cheese, bacon hanging over the bread and nearly double the price of Burger King and McDonalds, then it delivers a sandwich at almost 2 times the cost much smaller, much different than the illustration.”
“If the true sandwich was captured most people wouldn’t pay that price,” she added. “Over the years the quality has changed dramatically yet the stock price continues to increase at the expense of the customer and the employee. Luckily the location I visited provided great service but comments on TikTok revealed Baristas just as frustrated as the customers due to constant complaints over something they feel they have no control over. Luckily for Starbucks, the solution is simple: lower the price or deliver a product that matches the price point.”
BroBible reached out to Starbucks via email.
‘They All Look Like That’
Most commenters made it clear that the food was premade.
“Obviously you never been to a Starbucks before. Cause they ALL look like that!” one wrote.
“Yeah, everything is from the freezer delivered to the store,” a second said. “Nothing is made “fresh” like Dunkin'”
“You returned it because the bacon was too small, what?” a third said with a series of crying emojis. “They aren’t using real bacon.”
The TikToker replied to this comment. They said, “Honestly what was pictured on their menu looked decent enough to pay $6 for, what I received did not. So I was able to get a refund.”
A fourth commenter expressed similar sentiments. “They pop that food in the microwave,” they remarked. “My daughter use to work at Starbucks and bring home those wrapped sandwiches almost everyday.”
In response to this, Binkbadd said, “Yeah, but that doesn’t mean the bacon should be 1/4 the size as the picture.”
How Else Did The TikToker Respond?
As commenters continued to make their feelings known, Binkbadd replied to several of them in the form of follow-up TikToks. In one, she replies to a commenter who questioned why she was comparing frozen food to fresh, especially curated images of food.
“So you’re naming the problem, aware of the problem, defining the fraud, and still defending the multi-billion corporation and chastising me?” she asks in her reply.
A second commenter, who claimed to be a barista, said that they have “no control” over how much bacon goes on the sandwich. They added that this is “very exhausting and that’s ya’ll problem.”
In response, Binkbadd says that what Gen Z workers don’t understand is that, in her opinion, a company’s problem is that worker’s problem while they are on shift. “Nobody expects you to control how big a piece of bacon is in a premade sandwich. The expectation is that if you observe a quality issue, you select another sandwich or you resolve the situation like the ladies in the video did by simply offering a refund.” She goes on to say that this is what workers are “hired to do,” and “if you don’t wanna do the job, don’t work there.”
‘Starbucks Customer Thinks The Sandwich Is ‘False Advertising’
A third commenter wrote that “this is so embarrassing.” To this, Binkbadd asks, “You wanna know what’s more [embarrassing] than me requesting a refund from a multi-billion-dollar company after they falsely advertised a product?”
Her answer is what she describes as the commenter’s “ugly wig” in their profile picture. In a fourth TikTok, she disagrees with a commenter who said that “all the barista [does] is put it in the oven and take it out.” Instead, Binkbadd remarks how the barista could see the sandwich as they were preparing it and see what the picture of it and the “quality standard” look like.
“The barista do more than just put it in the oven, and if you don’t want to do the extra parts of a customer-facing position, then don’t work there,” she remarks.
In a fifth and final follow-up, she hits back at a commenter who emphasized that the sandwich comes pre-made. “So because something comes pre-made, I shouldn’t expect it to look how it looks in the advertised image?”
Can You Make Returns At Starbucks?
According to beverage blogger Coffee At Three, it is indeed possible to make returns at Starbucks. In the blog post, they point to Starbucks’ Barista Promise, “Love your beverage or let us know. We’ll always make it right.” As it turns out, Starbucks makes good on this promise.
When it comes to returning stuff at Starbucks, the blogger has a few tips. The first is that you should let them know politely, which, of course, should go without saying. They note that it is easiest to do this before leaving the store. However, they also add that it’s possible to ask for a replacement at a different Starbucks than the one you ordered from.
They then go on to say that the barista will usually check that it was made recently and that you hadn’t had much of the product. While they use drinks as the specific example, it applies to food, too.