Starbucks

Its a Starbucks, a chain focused on supplying magical caffeine conveniently every four blocks. This one is smaller than average, and located in the Lexington hotel with a tiny little sign that shows you where to enter from the street. The store is very very narrow with doors at either end (to the street or to the hotel). The line meets at the cashier at the end closer to the hotel door. This means if you’re entering from the hotel side and there is already a long line, you’re going to have a lot of trouble navigating to the back of the line because the space is so small.
The baristas are quick and on top of things, even though the back prep area is really tight. I haven’t had problems with my drink and rarely have had to wait more than a few minutes.
There is NO SEATING in this Sbux. But PRO TIP: Enter the hotel from the back door and go up the stairs to your left. you’ll emerge on the hotel mezzanine level where there are seats, couches, and little cocktail tables. No wifi that I’m aware of, but definitely helpful if you must get away for a secret meet up.

The slowest Starbucks in Midtown. For that reason, I’ve only gotten coffee and will not try for espresso drinks here. I wanted soy but no one was at the bar — go figure. And since it’s on the side of a hotel, people like to use the Sbux has an alternative exit. The building’s columns also make for a bad flow/​feng shui.

Little busy this morning but I was impressed when girl remembered my exact drink I ordered rush hour Sunday

The workers at this Starbucks make me want to shoot myself in the face. I only ever order plain hot coffees, and at your typical Starbucks, by the time you pay and get your receipt, the coffee is about 5 seconds from being in your hand. At this Starbucks, they always have a bunch of people who are supposed to be filling the drink orders and 2 cashiers, yet, whenever I order a plain coffee I have to wait around for at least a minute or two.
You may think, no big deal right? Well Starbucks also has this rule where if you get a plain coffee, you can’t pick up at the drink counter – you MUST wait at the cashier line. And let me tell you, this Starbucks is the size of a large closet. They’ve laid out the store poorly on top of that so when the cashier and the drink makers are not coordinated, what happens at morning rush hour here is that there are a bunch of people rushing to work all bottlenecked at the tiny space around the cash register awkwardly waiting for plain coffees.
Now add in the additional factor that the cash register people are always chatting about their paychecks and not paying attention. When I come here, about ¹⁄₃ of the time I have to remind the person who took my order to actually call to the drink maker in the back to pour a venti bold. Seriously? YOU HAVE ONE JOB.
Then I get a sloppy $ 2.67 coffee. It’s always either too little coffee in the cup or too much, or the outside of the cup is browned from someone spilling in the back. And of course, we can’t forget all of the delightful (read slow) tourists that are staying in the hotel joined to this starbucks which just really is the cherry on top.
If my usual starbucks on 51^st between Lex and Park weren’t blocked off because of the UN conferences right now, I would never entertain the idea of coming here for coffee even if it’s right there. Get yourselves together, people.

This is a small Starbucks that is attached to a hotel. I ran in here to pick up a green tea and a breakfast sandwich. At 8 am they were already out of turkey bacon which I ended up having them replace with ham. Service was good and they were nice about the lack of turkey bacon. It’s a Starbucks if you have been to one before you know what they have to offer. There is no place to sit down in this one, so I would only go here if you are looking to dip in and out real quick. Other than that get your favorites and be on your merry way!

I think this Starbies is a mixed bag. I stayed at the Lexington Hotel, so I went to this location every day for 5 days. When they aren’t busy, the staff is on-​point and it’s in and out. When they’re busy, drinks back up, the work space seems too small for the number of workers trying to move around each other, service is kind of impersonal, the waiting area gets mixed with the line and the wait time can be annoying.
On a side note, some of the pictures are misleading because there isn’t any seating at this location.

While I am not a fan of Starbucks coffee, I somehow managed to become a Gold Card member since 2010. For a coffee snob to frequent a place that is deemed to offer coffee of average quality, there needs to be other factors other than convenience.
Starbucks @511 Lexington has become a third or fourth home due to the wonderful staff that prepares my drink. The baristas are friendly and proficient at managing down long lines with ease as this location services hotel customers along with patrons working in the Midtown East area. The baristas would also provide the hookup with an occassional specialty drink for a price of a regular grande house blend.
A visit to this Starbucks location is more of a place for recess rather than a mere caffeine fix.

This is one of the worst Starbucks that I’ve ever been to. The line is always long and the staff does a very good job of messing up or forgetting drinks. After several bad experiences, my frequency to Starbucks has greatly decreased until they can figure out how to operate a coffee shop.

This Starbucks was downstairs from our hotel room and actually has inside it an entrance to another hotel. Handy.
On the way home from dinner at Darbar, we stopped here for warm-​up coffee and NYC cupcake 3 of 3 for me.
Never in my life have I been one of those people who scrapes frosting off of cakes. I always go for gusto. But I couldn’t deal with the amazingly greasy and sugary tower of frosting they put on their cupcakes. I didn’t eat all of it. Cupcake 1, Emily 0.