Starbucks is Officially Done Letting Non-Paying Customers Use Their WiFi & Restrooms

Stephen Chernin. Getty Images.

Restaurant Business - Customers will no longer be able to visit a Starbucks for the bathroom or the Internet without buying something.

But those who do buy something can stay as long as they want. And anybody—not just Starbucks Rewards members—will be able to get free refills on coffee drinks starting Jan. 27.

The Seattle-based chain, eager to change the environment inside its coffee shops, released a new code of conduct Monday making it clear that the chain’s amenities are for paying customers only. The code will be displayed in every store.

“Implementing a coffeehouse code of conduct is something most retailers already have and is a practical step that helps us prioritize our paying customers who want to sit and enjoy our cafes or need to use the restroom during their visit,” the company said in a statement. “By setting clear expectations for behavior and use of our spaces, we can create a better environment for everyone.”

The company under CEO Brian Niccol has made it a priority to return the chain to its roots as a traditional coffee shop where customers spend time hanging out with friends, meeting with business associates or getting some work done.

Much of the focus publicly has been on the conflict between that goal and the company’s rapidly growing mobile order business, where customers waiting for such orders can clog lobbies.

But Starbucks wants to make its cafes more inviting, believing that it could make its shops better places to visit even when customers are just picking up a takeout order. The company plans to add more comfortable seating and let customers add cream to their own coffee again.

Starbucks is as thriving of a business our country has to offer. As great an example of the American success story as you'll find. The first Starbucks coffee shop opened in 1970's in downtown Seattle, Washington. It was a hip place for Pike Place Market employees to grab their morning coffee in preparation for a long day of shouting and throwing fish at customers. It was a place where aspiring writers could work on their screenplays in public and cosplay as contributing members of society. Somewhere that people with absolutely nowhere else to go could sit down at a table and simply exist.

Technically you can still do those things at a Starbucks, but it's something completely different now. Starbucks used to be a classy establishment like any other local coffee shop. There's something about a coffee shop, whether it's the aggressively mediocre wall art, the shelves of books that nobody has ever considered reading, the steam-punk clientele… something about them that makes spending 4 hours on a Wednesday afternoon failing to complete a crossword puzzle feel like a respectable way to spend a day. Coffee shops serve an important purpose in society, and Starbucks is the greatest of them all. It cannot be understated what Starbucks did for the mental health of unemployed Seattle hipsters to help them maintain an aura of intellectualism, and stave-off succumbing to full blown heroin addiction until they were at least full grown adults.

I don't actually know shit about what the first Starbucks in Seattle were like. I'm just using 70's Seattle-based context clues. But even I remember a time when Starbucks still had the feeling of a local coffee shop. Somewhere along the line they outgrew that identity. Starbucks went from a chic, trendy cafe to the overly commercialized McDonald's of coffee it is today. To pick up a simple latte from the front counter requires fighting through a hoard of heathens non-patiently waiting for the overworked baristas to finish creating their monstrosity of a venti caramel & cream frappachino with 5 shots espresso, double choc. chip, white mocha, extra mocha drizzle, extra whip (top & bottom), triple-blended, double-cup, whole milk, with 14 sugars.

Along with that, in major cities, homeless people soon realized that Starbucks was a preferable place to spend a cold winter day.. or a hot summer's day… or even a perfectly lovely 70 degree spring afternoon than a homeless shelter. There aren't many places you can find the amenities of a Starbucks for the price of $0. For a homeless person, to gain entry to a Starbucks bathroom is to have a luxurious studio apartment for 30 minutes at at time. Or for as long as you can placate the teenage employees with "I'll be done in a second!", until they inevitably call the police and you're removed by force. But not before taking the most unhealthy shit the world as ever seen that somehow touches every part of the restroom except for the toilet.

There's nothing nice about spending time in a Starbucks anymore. A Starbucks restaurant is nothing more than a vehicle for pumping out mobile orders, and place for homeless to bathe themselves in sinks. At best it provides people with somewhere to connect to WiFi in an emergency. Above all else, they're just wildly overcrowded. Every time I walk past a Starbucks, the inside looks more like a crowded DMV than a coffee shop. The lines are long. Nobody is happy to be there. It's the polar opposite of a peaceful place to pensively sip a cappuccino as you stare blankly at an empty Word document. 

I'm surprised they've allowed non-customers to hang out and use their facilities for as long as they have. Even with changing this rule, which is 100% just a rule to keep homeless out, as any non-homeless person who wants to spend all day in a Starbucks is at least going to buy a coffee. There's still no way Starbucks manages to "get back to their roots". At least not in big cities. In big cities they're too far gone. But regardless, if you want to spend a day at Starbucks. If you want to commandeer the men's restroom for an hour to wash up for a big job interview at Burger King to get your life back on track, you'll at minimum have to purchase a $1.75 side of avocado spread. Or a bag of Starbucks buttered popcorn.

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