Starbucks' breakfast sandwiches are "only marginally edible," says food critic

Eggs aren't made to be cooked in one spot and shipped to another to be eaten -- the way it's done at Starbucks. "This dooms these breakfast sandwiches," writes Ed Levine. "What Starbucks ends up serving is a slightly more upscale version of the same scary things we can also buy at 7-Eleven, McDonald's, and every gas station on interstates all across America. ...I found the best way to eat a Starbucks breakfast sandwich is to discard the egg loaf slice and eat the rest." (Seriouseats.com)

Comments

[Andrew]

I think that the Starbucks Breakfast sandwiches are pretty decient. Compared to the pastries and other suggery options in the fast food breakfast catergory the sandwiches is a better health option. they are under $3 bucks. What are one's other options for breakfast? mcdonalds?

[sbuxnewbie]

I haven't been to a Starbucks with the hot food station yet, so I have only others' comments to go on, but...

The description of the sandwiches look remarkably similar to the precooked egg things they foist off on us at Dunkin' Donuts.

I keep trying to tell them - that isn't a croissant! But neither is the thing they sell at Burger King, or - I'm ashamed to say - Starbucks. It is merely a croissant-shaped roll.

(Croissants are fresh, light, flaky, fluffy, and delightful; any of the frozen/thawed stuff is just another roll.)

[Near Vegan]

You might want to check the nutrition chart before using "Starbucks breakfast sandwiches" and "health" in the same sentence.

[barista lane]

i don't know where you're getting your information, but as far as i know, croissants at starbucks are fresh every day and not "any of the frozen/thawed stuff"

about the sandwiches, i do work at a store that sells them, i actually haven't eaten them, i'm not a big breakfast person, but they don't look too bad. PLUS they all have expiration dates of months in the future, but they are thrown out if not sold at the end of the day after they are received at the store.

as the article touches on, actually preparing sandwiches on location is completely impractical for most starbucks stores. so if you like them, eat them, if you don't then you don't have to eat them.

one last thought...with the complicated drinks that our customers already have, could you imagine preparing breakfast sandwiches to order?

[Becca]

A few years ago, I worked in a licensed store where we made our own sandwiches (lunch, not breakfast) and they were fantastic: fresh baked baguettes eauch morning, filled with freshly sliced tomatoes and lettuce, and meat and cheese each sliced daily. Now I work in a corporate store, and sometimes cover a shift at a store with warming ovens... the difference between the two is like night and day, I could never eat the breakfast sandwiches, especially after eating the fresh ones our lc used to make.

The breakfast sandwiches arrive fresh everyday and are tossed at the end of the day. English muffins not pastries. Fresh and very good. Our store sells about 80 a day before 11am.

[Boston Starbucks Rebel]

When we get the sandwiches, I will shoot myself.

[newbarista]

I'm lucky that I dont work at a store that sells sandwiches/breakfast stuff. We are always have customers comming in telling us they had a sandwich at another store, and got sick...seems to be constant with the egg salad...so I doubt the breakie sandwich will be any better.

[Bariesta]

Yeah... our store doesn't sell them (thank God) but i really think Starbucks should just stick with what they know... COFFEE.

[nyc angry barista]

"one last thought...with the complicated drinks that our customers already have, could you imagine preparing breakfast sandwiches to order?"

too late...we had the warming program all of 1 day before we were taking apart the sammiches and reconfiguring them to customer whim. "no cheese please" "Can i have extra sausage." "i want the bacon one but on the bagel instead."

just say yes and throw a whole bunch of food in the garbage.

[newbarista]

Again, my store is far too small...we can barely fit in a cold drink station, let alone our weekly unisource order...so a warming oven or sandwich case would never fit.

Just say yes does not apply. If they want the extra sausage or (this seems to be popular in my store), sausage on the tomato basil, then they have to pay for both sandwiches. they come as is.

[Cory]

Our store was lucky enough not to get special orders on the sandwiches from customers...The little things are tasty, but before they're fully cooked... The sight of them reminds me of the 'Carl's Jr' days.

I think customers know what they're getting into when they buy those things, though... Really, with the drive thrus and breakfast sandwiches and whatnot, Starbucks is becoming more like a fast food comany every day. It's scary.

[IcedSoyLatte]

I'm not too excited about the whole "warming" idea, to say the least. There just is not enough room, nor do we have enough staffing hours to have that extra hand to help....some mornings it is even difficult to step away and grind coffee for a customer, let alone having to warm up the sandwiches, which I'm sure people will expect to ONLY take all of 10 seconds!! Plus I have been to a warming equiped store before, and tried one of the sandwiches, and it wasn't that impressive. I could go through my morning WITHOUT one....

p.s. I agree w/ those who say "Stick to what you know...COFFEE" or "Starbucks is trying too hard and becoming more like a fast food place every day."

[Chi-towns best/angriest barista]

oh man, those sadnwiches are awful! they make the entire store smell like burnt nastiness and they slow things down and make orderign even more complicated. people either order them at the register adn we have to yell it down to the pasrty partners, or they order at the pastry case and "forget" to tell the register partner, or say "i have a sandwich." well great, which one?
not to mention they look nasty like all greasy and fast food-ish.
now we have partners getting pretty bad "cheese burns" from the icky stuff dripping off them right after they come out of the oven.
please, take those damn sandwiches out of my store!

[Eddie]

SBUX tried this years ago in Seattle and it bombed then. Sadly this is moving them even closer to a Dunkin Donuts or McDonalds level of standards. It's only a matter of time before the deep friers are installed!

[coffeeguy]

personally I feel that while Sandwiches are within our possibility to serve the only way to do them properly to adhere to our customers high expectations is to do them up on the spot fresh every day or have a sandwich bar installed and have someone making sandwiches by hand.

Our customers expect the highest quality from us and 7-11 and Dunkin dounuts are not that level of quality.

What's that saying again. Go big or go home. If Seattle is serious about doing this I would say that installing sandwich bars and having an extra barista on the floor solely to make the lunch sandwiches is about the only way to go that we can adhere to our high standards. Either that or have the local bakery make up the sandwiches and have them dropped off freshly made each morning.

Quality I personally think is key to having this work and work the way our customers expect.

Of course I'll plainly admit I'm heavily against the drive thru's as well. I just don't think it's possible to have legendary service with the limited customer interaction a drive thru provides. Someone gets bad service at a drive thru odds are they are not coming back to that store.

[sbuxnewbie]

Barista Lane - you wonder where I get my info on the frozen/thawed croissants?

From the freezer.

I work in a Sbux in the NE US, and we get our deliveries on M-W-F. The croissants come frozen on the truck along with the cinnimon twists, scones, muffins, bagels, brioche, danish, etc.

If you are lucky enough to work at a store that gets fresh croissants daily, then take advantage of it! Because you are the only one that I know about.

[Kevin Tate]

Breakfast sandwiches are a good start, but they really need to give thought to preparing custom-order crepes with a choice of salmon, turkey, or sliced steak. I'm kidding, of course. I hope they give up the idea of sandwiches and stick to what they do best–coffee!

[Lauren]

Sbuxnewbie and Baristalane

All the way across the US there are "fresh" strores and "frozen" stores. Now, "fresh" stores aren't all fresh, all of the Colorado stores (for the most part) get fresh denver deliveries like croissants, bagels, etc, but receive loafs (pumpkin, etc) which were once frozen (but are thawed at shipping).

I'm not sure how it's split but I know most of the west are fresh stores and any near bigger cities are usually fresh, but that's just my experience.

Also, they say when I get my baristas to get their rags off their counters we get warming...maybe I'll start making it a rule that whenever health inspectors come rags must be on the counters...

[Barista sUz]

Ohm.. This is why I don't EAT my breakfast at a COFFEE SHOP. You might as well buy the frozen stuff from the supermarket.
Nothing comes "fresh". Everything is frozen. The meat from the fast food places?.. Probably frozen. Fries? FROZEN. FAST FOOD is their specialty. This isn't a diner.
If you want tasty... Learn how to make it yourself. At HOME. With FRESH ingredients. Oh.. No, you don't want to? Then stop complaining or don't eat it.
&this is why I don't eat fast food. Or frozen dinners.

[8ozBarista]

I can't believe that there are stores that get their pastries delivered frozen! I work in Chicago and our pastries get delivered every morning before we open. We never keep them for the next day. Also, about the breakfast sandwiches, I agree, they are average. They are kind of dry and just ok. They are essentially the same as an egg mcmuffin @mcdonalds, except with fancier ingredients to make it seem better and fancier. I won't lie though, I have eaten them and will probably eat them again. It's a matter of convenience. I get my coffee there and if I'm hungry at that moment I would choose the sandwich over a sugar loaded pastry 75%of the time. It's just another sbux marketing ploy just like selling cd's in the stores, and it seems to be working.

[JayADK]

Starbucks, are you listening?
You need to concentrate all your efforts on serving the best, the very best, coffee to be found anywhere.

If you move in any direction. Consider fresh roasting your beans in the stores.

[STARBUCKS GOSSIP webmaster]

Many of the Dunn Bros. coffee shops in the Twin Cities roast their beans at their stores. Metropolis in Chicago (Granville Ave.) does, too. There's a tiny, tiny coffee shop in Wilmette, IL called Alchemy Coffee (on Linden) that has a roaster in the back of the store. In Milwaukee, the Alterra Coffee on Prospect has an in-store roaster. Fresh coffee equals the best coffee.

[Alex]

I'll add some of my thoughts. First of all, any customer who cares about quality food won't buy a pre-made sandwich. I work in Midtown Manhattan and I balk at the idea of paying around $6 for a sandwich that was made in the morning and has sat in plastic wrap waiting for lunch.

This is partly because I've worked in a coffee shop that also baked their own bread throughout the day and made fresh sandwiches. It does take a certain amount of room, but it really only takes about 30 seconds for an experienced employee to make a fully custom sandwich. At that shop, we could move the line steadily, and I've never seen a Midtown deli, coffee shop, etc. as busy at lunch as the place I used to work. The customization only becomes a problem when the sandwiches are pre-made. Our shop dealt with it by having little cards that the customers could check off each possible ingredient, type of bread, etc. And there were preset recipes also.

In response to the first comment, a good option for breakfast in NYC is an egg and cheese from a little corner deli joint. Sesame bagel is toasted, cheese is nice and melted, and the egg is fried right there in front of me, not from a bag, not pre-cooked, and it comes to around $3. May not have fancy herbs or ingredients, but it's fresh, and the quality is actually better.

[wheresthecoffee]

Starbucks and Noah's Bagels should merge. 'Bux does the coffee and let Noah's handle the sandwiches, breakfast and lunch.

[IcedSoyLatte]

We're a flippin' COFFEE SHOP!!!!! *LOL* The new name should be "Starbucks Coffee and Deli" if they keep this up.

[CuteBarista!]

on the pastries, fyi...even the "fresh" stores's pastries are flash frozen and then thawed when needed, only not at the store but at some damn warehouse in Jersey...sorry, no "fresh" at the buck.

[coffeeguy]

Wow...I'm trying to imagine a store where partners are trained properly on coffee roasting and all the coffee is roasted on spot.

The smell alone would make me wake up a bit in the morning.

The only problem is that I can see that buttered vegetable smell not being so pleasing for some people.

[VegasASM]

I'm confused. I thought most of the pastries were baked fresh daily for Starbucks. We get our pastries delivered every night after closing for the next morning here. All from the local bakery in town. The only things aren't baked daily are like expresso brownies, snowman cookies, bliss bar, etc. The items that are labled with info. But everything else is fresh everyday here in Las Vegas. Strange to hear that some cities get all frozen pastries.

[barockstar]

cute barista:
watch what you say, since it's not accurate at all...

there are stores that are IN the cities where the pastries are born. those stores ALWAYS get fresh pastries.

there are stores that are OUT of the cities where the pastries are born, and those stores get frozen ones.

there are many more stores IN than OUT of cities with distribution centres...

please don't create more urban legends, we're still dealing with all the other ones...
:)

[Barista sUz]

Our pastries come frozen. I think that may be cos we don't have any local pastry shops that are big enough to handle 8+ Starbucks locations in our area. We're not a big market, but big enough that a small shop probably wouldn't keep up. Also, I don't think pastries are a big thing here either. We sell enough. But not worth the cost.

As for roasting, I think that would take a lot of time and money. I'm at a mall store so we obviously wouldn't be able to fit anything big.. anywhere.
We have only a couple local coffee shops here that actually roast their coffee. And let me just say that just cos they can roast, doesn't mean the coffee is good...

[Dave]

Interestingly, many years ago BS (before Startbucks), Dunkin Donuts used to make their breakfast sandwiches fresh right there in front of you. They had these little rings they put in the microwave and cracked a fresh egg in the ring. The bacon and sausage were pre-cooked of course, but I think they actually cooked the bacon in the morning. They were actually really good, mostly because of the fresh egg. They don't do this anymore of course, but it was good while they did. I think Starbucks would need more employees to pull off something like that, though, because it was clearly labor intensive.

[HamNRye]

"I'm trying to imagine a store where partners are trained properly on coffee roasting and all the coffee is roasted on spot."

Then read the other thread about how most Starbucks "Barrista's" can't get Latte Temp right.

I'm sorry, while some stores would do better at it, I'm guessing about 50% of the Bux out there would wind up with unevenly roasted crap. Considering Starbucks burns their beans anyway, it might not be a bad thing.

One thing you'll find over time is that Starbucks roasts way too darkly. The lighter roasts on high quality beans preserve the flavor.

[Becca]

I think that if starbucks started to roast the beans in store, you would find that there would be a shift in employment. I would imagine that there would be one or two designated roasters at the store, but the reason so many people are getting bad experiences at Starbucks these days is because they have made the job too easy. We all know that the espresso shots don't taste as good on a verismo, but it also means that a monkey could make the drinks. This means that we are getting more and more incompetent people being hired. Half of the employees at my store wouldn't have even gotten a second interview back when making drinks required some skill. If they make the job harder again, there will be a short time period of mrginalized quality, but it would quickly increase again.

[Will]

why is it that the verismo shots aren't as good? I do agree with you, the few times i got to try a latte made on a marzocco, it was ay better, but don't you think they could create a verismo like machine that recreated the taste?

what about the magistrales (sp?), i know they break down a lot, but how do the shots come out?

[sbuxfan22]

Gad again what a bunch of different comments. In Seattle we have fresh pasteries and as to this comment above==> "SBUX tried this years ago in Seattle and it bombed then. Sadly this is moving them even closer to a Dunkin Donuts or McDonalds level of standards. It's only a matter of time before the deep friers are installed!

Posted by: Eddie | Nov 28, 2006 "

umm excuse me Eddie are you still in seattle or what? I have been eating many of the different breakfast sandwiches, Low fat turkey, rossted tomatol the ham egg bagel, etc for the last year. And yes like the guy above says many stores run out before noon. Guess why . NO it's not because they throw them in the garbage or they go bad or they stink too much. IT IS BECAUSE PEOPLE LIKE THEM. So please those of you who do not like eating them or selling them or cooking them. stay out of the store or just go bye your 7-11 donut ( gad comparing a Low Fat turkey bacon sandwich made and delivered early the same morning to that thing they have at 7-11).
Any way leave my breakfast alone thank you. Fan from Seattle

[barbara]

I just had a low fat turkey breakfast sandwich from starbucks last week when I was in New York City and I thought it was great. Would like to know the nutritional information and if it is good than I would hope that starbucks continues to make them and hopefully carry them in the new jersey market.

[starbill]

From the first time I walked into a Starbucks, I knew that it wouldn't be my last. It was quite simple really, and it only took a sniff of that beautiful aroma of roast coffee to figure out that I wasn't alone. Finally, it wasn't just I who had walked into all those other coffee places to smell everything else but the coffee. Nor was it only I who sniffed the steam out of my hot cup of coffee before every sip, to be disappointed once and again for the lack of that beautiful coffee aroma. No, there were others out there and finally someone had catered to our senses. Call it Starbucks, call it starpenny, to me it was all about the aroma. That same experience I used to enjoy in any coffee house in Paris, Cairo or Rome.

Ever since, I used to rejoice the intoxicating aroma of my cup of coffee at Starbucks every day. It’s been so long now that I can’t even recall when this all started. The smell of roast coffee the minute I walk into Starbucks every morning was the “good morning” I received and the promise that a cup of my choice of brew will be just as good – like those small complementary pieces of chocolate they offer when you walk into Godiva at times.

Then came the bacon. Yes, I recall that morning when I opened the door to the store to walk in and thought to myself that something at the store was burning. I actually thought that something must have accidentally happened in the store overnight that caused this terrible smell, or, if not, that a new breakfast place was really cooking up breakfast nearby. I must say that I never tasted bacon, so I can’t say what it smells or tastes like nor can my brain associate any food-like association to it. As far as my nose will tell me, it is the smell of something burning – something strange that’s burning, and it doesn’t smell like food to me.

Ever since that day, I tried a couple of times to go back to Starbucks but I just can’t – my nose just won’t let me. From the door, to the line-up, the line-up it self, and smell that sticks to my clothes and inner nostrils till way past my morning coffee is just unbearable. But worst of all, I can’t smell or enjoy my coffee any more.

The bacon has reduced my two-dimensional coffee experience into a one-dimensional tainted cup of starpenny coffee. It’s too bad, now I hold my breath while passing Starbucks on my way to Timothy’s or Second Cup.

Nothing wrong with Timothy’s, Second Cup or any coffee bean brewing place of course, but then I have to ask for soy milk or lactose free milk and get a long stare or your typical “sorry, we are out”; or a “we have skim milk” which doesn’t help my lactose intolerance one bit. Then there’s Splenda – last time I asked for it I got “yes all our coffee is splendid”. Sometimes it feels like I stepped back in time to get my morning cup of Joe.

[barista2long]

I burned my face by the cheese splattrering up from a bacon sandwhich the other day when I pulled it out of the oven....it burned me so bad on my cheek it scabbed and now there's a faint scar like wth man that cheese is dangerous always burning us baristas......grrrr