This Veteran’s Day at Starbucks, all active duty military, veterans, and military spouses will enjoy a free tall cup of coffee. Go to Starbucks.com/Veterans for more information. In addition, Starbucks has announced that it plans to recruit more than 10,000 veterans into its work force over the next five years.
I personally feel the utmost respect and appreciation for those who have served. We have a voluntary military. Whether you joined the Air Force, Army, Marines, Coast Guard, or Navy, and served for two years or twenty, I thank you.
(My own experiences were in the Air Force, having served four years during a peaceful time. These were my stripes.)
Thank you Starbucks for your Veteran’s Day promotion and commitment to hiring veterans!
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I am glad to see that Starbucks is doing this.
The real key is getting the right people who can translate military skills into skills for Starbucks. Many companies have tried this and been very successful so Starbucks should be too.
As a Vietnam Era Veteran (submarines didn’t go in country 😉 ) I have seen the ugly side of how a Veterans were treated. I am encouraged that that silliness is now a very rare occurrence.
In the near future I am looking forward to meeting a Gunny or COB (Chief of the Boat) store manager 😉 .
@DadCooks – I appreciate your insights. I think the military teaches so many good life skills that can work well for an organization like Starbucks.
I appreciate your comment. One thing I see happening a lot is that the Facebook conversations have grown tremendously. I see names of people leaving comments on FB who used to comment here a lot – I know in another thread you mentioned the number of comments as a gauge of popularity, but it’s just not that way. Many conversations have moved to Facebook. I would love to pull people back to leaving blog comments, but there really isn’t anything I can do. I can tell by my analytics that there are more people now than in the past reading it. It’s only within the past 12 months or so that somehow the FB side has taken off. (And the slight drop off in comments definitely correlates with that).
I just don’t want you to think that because a thread has two or three comments, people don’t like it or are not reading it.
This is great for vets, I’ll let my Dad who served in Vietnam know. I hope Starbucks promotes this more widely on Veterans day.
I’m so glad that Starbucks is doing this for our armed services. It’s just such a decent gesture. I haven’t seen much in store advertising about it though. i hope there is more signage come the day so it is known.
Thumbs up to Starbucks for supporting our veterans!
@DadCooks – One more comment, I find it amazing how many “likes this article has! I am stunned!
@Cyn – I have heard that signage is still coming to the stores. You’re right – needs to be advertised.
@Jeff – Hope your dad enjoys his coffee!
What a great offer for vets.
By the way, I had my first red cup of the season – gingerbread latte – and it was delicious. Although I think it was missing the molasses because I asked for no whip 🙁
My twitter handle is qwerty1!
So do we have any idea what the Portal Action Item and/or training looked like on this one? You know my concern will always be how this is handled at the individual store level by the front-line partners. I would hate to see any person eligible for this offer to be denied in an unpleasant fashion.
As to the recruiting efforts, I just saw a post on SBux’s Facebook page asking why they’re not including Veteran’s Spouses in their efforts (only Active Duty Spouses). I thought that was a worthwhile question (I wish I could link to those posts here) and I’d be interested in seeing if SBux responds to that. Of course there’s also another post from yesterday indicating that veterans have been denied employment opportunities in the past due to ‘lack of experience’.
Happy Veterans Day, Mel!
I hope this finally puts to rest all the dumb and false rumors about Starbucks not supporting military!
Happy Veterans Day Melody!
@Hayley bad things always persist for insane amounts of time (see:vaccinations) 🙁 afraid we will have to snopes at people forever more.
I love that they are doing this and i hope partners err on the side of just say yes.
Thank you everyone for the great comments.
@SnowWhite – I have worried about the implementation of this promo. It would be really bad PR for Starbucks to have any partners saying “no” to customers because already has to fight those false rumors that you’ve mentioned. And no doubt, you can’t tell who has been in the service by looking at them. I think for a Veteran’s Day promo, it becomes especially critical to just say “yes” – Starbucks needs to put to rest those false rumors of not supporting the military. I hope it’s abundantly clear, no ID needed. I will let you know how it goes when I visit Starbucks on Veteran’s Day. 🙂
First and foremost, THANK YOU for your service @Melody, @DadCooks, and all others.
I’m proud of Starbucks for doing the right thing on Monday and into the future. I remember seeing a post about tweetmyjobs.com (in conjunction with Joining Forces) on the Starbucks Digital Network, well before this huge announcement of hiring support.
Note: They’re also offering eGifts that honor military personnel
https://www.starbucks.com/shop/card/egift/veterans-day
Good day, everyone.
as a 24 years veteran it make me feel good that starbuck is looking out for vet and their wife always love my triple venti latte looking forward to Veteran’s Day
Thanks to all of our military personnel! Hope the promo goes smoothly for everyone on Monday.
I think it is great that the veterans get recognized. I was a submarine sailor and fortunately never saw combat. I was a Nuclear Operator and instructor.
My stepfather was a Marine and never got recognized for his service from1937 until 1945 He was already in the Marines when WWII broke out.. He spent all of WWII in the Pacific he came back and there wasn’t any parades for him he just went back to farming like he did before the war.
Thank You Starbucks for the recognition.
@George and @Curtis – Thank you for serving. 🙂 I’m glad you found my little site and I hope you’ll poke around and “like” it.
@Becky E – I hope so! It will be interesting to see what gets posted on the official Starbucks page on Veteran’s Day – It seems like that’s the place that many people go if they want to complain about Starbucks.
Awesome! So thankful for our Veterans and the great gift starbucks is giving them!!!
Hi Hannah! Thank you for finding the blog and leaving a comment! I hope you will “like” it too. I hope this becomes a regular tradition for Starbucks to do something on Veteran’s Day. 🙂
I’m just a little curious. I noticed that somehow a link to this page got posted to a website called Military.Com (which I did immediately sign up at) I’m thankful that this page got posted there! – And I notice a few new faces in this thread. Did you by chance find me through Military.com? Thanks!
We’ve done this promo every year since I’ve been at my current store. (this will be my third year), so it should be a promotion partners ate aware of, though I know there are a lot of new partners around. May I say that I’m disappointed that everyone immediately jumps to the conclusion that partners won’t know what to do? I understand why, but I still find it discouraging.
Come on Starbucks you missed an entire military service!
“Whether you joined the Air Force, Army, Marines, Navy, and served for two years or twenty, I thank you.”
The Coast Guard has been in continuous operation started in 1790. http://www.uscg.mil/
@Matthew Demerath – I do not work for Starbucks. See the info in the upper right corner of this blog. I do appreciate it that you’ve pointed up my blaring omission! I will fix it immediately – you are right, I should not have missed the Coast Guard. I am emailing you also.
Starbucks,
Thank you for doing this. I am an Air Force veteran that served in war time, and I always appreciate the things people do on Veteran’s Day for all the vets and active duty. I am also unemployed, so I hope I will have a chance to get a job at your company.
i’m really excited to serve you a free tall coffee on monday, melody!!!!! 🙂
Hey Jocelyn – I am planning at being at your store around 9 am! Will see you then!
Thank You!!! It is a warm feeling when Corporations also Support! Starbucks~YOU ROCK!
First: I didn’t even red the thread to say: it’s about time!!! I have always voted this idea ‘up’ on MSI, especially in response to the never-ending requests that teachers be given some special treatment…never seems to end! (ignoring all the people who may need to work 24/7 shifts and certainly, a full yr.) and no, I have nothing against ‘teachers’…just the idea they deserve more than certainly military!
Secondly: Thanks to Melody and @ DadC….., as usual, for your service…..and to anyone else I didn’t mention!
And to @Melody, I don’t know that this matters but there are some of these vets still around…altho sadly not my Dad who served in WWII….. what about the Army Air Corps, which was pre Air Force (no Air Force in WWII). I think the date was officially 1946 or 47 when they became the (now) Air Force.
Melody all i can say is wow. im a Vietnam vet and after reading what Starbucks is doing for vets made me very happy. You know im not a wimp but after reading this i got a couple of tears in my eyes. Starbucks is the best ! God bless Starbucks and all the veterans.
Very admirable for Starbucks to offer this to veterans..thank you for recognizing vets like me and others
I have to say, I have seen no signage about this in any Sbux in the past 2 days. I hope they do this right, and advertise it! A tall coffee to Sbux is kind of like french fries to McD’s. ??? The recognition is what is really important, imo.
@Denise R – At the stores around here, the signage has been in the form of signs on the community board. Other than that, not much. I wonder how many people will come in for their free coffee?
Thank you StarBucks your one over Dunkin Donuts!
Melody, for the record. I went to my local Starbucks this morning (31364 Yucaipa Blvd, Yuiciapa, CA), as is my usual activity after a 10-mile bicycle ride out here in SoCal, and upon mentioning I was a vet to the young man behind the counter, he looked up while ringing my total and said flatly, “I will need a card of some sort.” I left. What?!? Did Starbucks think I was gaming them for $1.75? Bad PR is all I can say. Sign me, Steaming on the Patio
@Dan “Patio” Dalton –
First off, I want to say thank you for your service. As a vet, you deserve a huge thank you. I saw your comment yesterday, but spent most of yesterday moderating the blog from my phone, so I couldn’t really comment.
There absolutely no doubt in my mind that you should have gotten your coffee for free. So disheartening to hear that that barista didn’t “just say yes.”
I hope you will call Starbucks Customer Service and let them know what happened, and please ask Customer Service to follow up with the store directly too.
Phone
800-Starbuc (800-782-7282)
Mon – Fri 5 AM – 8 PM (PST)
Sat 6 AM – 4 PM (PST)
Dan thank you for commenting here. I hope you’ll come back to Starbucks soon. I don’t work for Starbucks, but still your experience is important to me.
Melody
@Dan “Patio” Dalton – thank you for your service. I too am sorry about your experience. I don’t believe Starbucks had any sort of qualification (e.g. showing a military ID) in order to receive the coffee. Nowhere did I see that on any of the corporate pages or in-store. There is no way he should have refused you like that.
In the future, please don’t hesitate to ask for the store manager on-site if you should have any issues or bad service (hopefully not), or contact the District Manager. Any of the employees should be able to provide that info.
[I would expect a lot of people who took part in the promotion were not in the military. For them, karma…]
I am a “new” Starbucks partner returning to the company after 8 years of separation. I am a military spouse and was unable to work for Starbucks for that time beciase we were always stationed where there were no local stores. Now I am back and am so grateful the company hired me back on. With that in mind, I thought I read somewhere that active duty spouses were eligible to receive the free cup of coffee on Veterans Day. Melody, could you please clarify this for me? Thanks so much and thank you to ALL who have served, vets, active duty AND the spouses. We are a proud community and I couldn’t be prouder of all who have served!