Starbucks Pigsty

In the center of Kuala Lumpur is a small shopping mall called Plaza Low Yat.  On each side of the main entrance is a cafe, to the left it's a Starbucks and to the right a Coffee Bean.

It is quite amazing to look at the difference. Starbucks basically always look like a pigsty:



The tables are never cleaned, there's rubbish on the floor and I have yet to see an ash tray on any of the tables.



Quite disgusting really and as you can see this wasn't exactly at a busy hour - in fact there wasn't a single customer on the outside and only one or two inside.

Moving to the right of the main entrance is a completely different story.  Outside Coffee Bean it is absolutely spotless:



All the tables are clean, no rubbish lying around (except from the occasional napkin blown over from the Starbucks side) and a clean ash tray on about half the tables or so.



I have no idea what the staff at Starbucks is paid - but in general I would expect they are paid about RM 5/hour or so.  A cup of coffee is about RM 10++.  In other words - they charge the equivalent of 2 hours salary for one cup of coffee.  I think it's only reasonable they get enough staff to keep their premises clean and I personally wouldn't dream of spending a single cent on the Starbucks side.

Update 12-06-2010:

Starbucks makes an effort linking to Facebook pages from their web-site.  I posted a link to this blog on the main Starbucks page and on the Malaysian one.  I also wrote an email to customers@starbucks.com.my (which is mentioned on the web-site).  Both the postings were removed without comments and I have received no reply on the email.

That is just incredible!  It clearly shows that it's a management decision not to waste time and resources on cleaning.  IF the management had wanted to keep their places clean, I think they should have thanked me for pointing out this problem instead of just trying to hide it.  Ah well - perhaps I'll receive thanks from Coffee Bean instead.