Recently wife and I were having a coffee at this branch of Starbucks, when two men entered, walked past the other customers and then started very aggressively shouting at us in a foreign language. One of the men was shouting at a distance of no more than 12 inches from my face We were frightened not only because the men were so aggressive but also, even though it was obvious what was going on, none of the Starbucks’ staff or customers came to our assistance. In particular, there were at least four Starbucks staff on duty at the time, who were totally uninterested in our plight. none of whom made any attempt to approach the men or call the police.
This sustained verbal abuse continued for about 5 minutes, during which I asked the men to go away many times. When eventually they left us alone and walked out of the coffee shop, I noticed that the men had stolen my wife’s mobile phone.
I am sure that we were targeted by a professionals who chose us because we were older than most of the Starbucks’ customers and thus likely to put up less resistance Also, the way that they acted in an aggressive manner towards us as a decoy to steal my wife’s mobile phone convinced me that they had done this many times before
I believe that the thieves chose this Starbucks branch because of its open layout and that they knew Starbucks staff would do very little to challenge them.
I will NEVER set foot in this branch again. I previous visits I have noticed customers being harassed by aggressive beggars which the Starbucks staff do nothing to prevent.
Updated (9/4/2018) Since my original email I have just been informed that Starbucks refused to hand over CCTV footage to the police allowing them to investigate this incident. It gets even worse !!!