Thousands of Starbucks stores experienced a computer outage. Until the problem was solved on Friday some Starbucks stores gave away free drinks. The outage was experienced in the US in 7.000 company-operated stores and in 1.000 stores in Canada.
Due to this problem the stores closed earlier on Friday to the disappointment of many. In order to make up for this the stores served drinks and snacks for free. Late on Friday night the company made an announcement:
“All Starbucks stores in the U.S. and Canada are expected to open for business as usual on Saturday. We apologize to our customers for this inconvenience or confusion and will update this statement once systems are back online.”
The problem started on the West Coast in the late afternoon on Friday and reached the East Coast in the early evening. The stores which had not been closed already were closed earlier than usual.
It seems that the problem was fixed in a couple of hours and the stores will open on Saturday. The company made a statement in which they announced that they were actively working on resolving the outage.
According to Starbucks the outage was generated by a daily system refresh failure. Jim Olson, a Starbucks spokesman explained that the problem involved an internal computer system failure and he emphasized that no external breach wash involved in the incident; it was just an internal problem. Olson added that 5.000 licensed stores in the US were not affected by the outage. The same goes for 300 licensed stores in Canada.
During the outage some stores closed. The entrance to the drive-thrus was blocked at some stores in Phoenix. After seeing the closed signs the angry customers drove away. Claudia Larson, one of the angry customers, said that she was together with her baby who was sleeping in the back of the car and she was waiting for a prescription. She confessed that she was upset because she could not get the coffee she wanted so much.
Some stores, on the other hand gave away free coffee, tea and snacks. In the South Lake Union neighborhood in Seattle the customers were announced that the staff could not process any orders and they received free coffee instead. Suveer Sharma, one of the customers, said that she has no reason to complain about a free cup of coffee.
According to the company the outage was also experienced in six Teavana tea Bar stores and four Evolution Fresh stores. These stores will too reopen on Saturday.
Image Source: OCWeekly
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