Hope stirs in the fight to free the milk and sugar at Starbucks

Starbucks moved the sugar and milk behind the counter during the pandemic. But Coleman is among the chain’s regulars bemoaning the decision to keep the condiment bar closed.

“Literally, it’s different every day," said Coleman, a 52-year-old software sales executive from Evanston, Ill., about how baristas serve his Venti coffee. “It’s worse for me and it’s got to be worse for them."

Drip coffee drinkers already feel forlorn as Starbucks has leaned into supplying fancier drinks, like the Iced Brown Sugar Oatmilk Shaken Espresso and TikTok-inspired Strawberry Cheesecake Frappuccino. Now, they feel shafted by coffee shops hiding creamers, forcing them to specify add-ons that can draw eye-rolls from employees or groans from patrons in line.

Add imprisoned condiments to the list of Covid-era restaurant practices that won’t leave, like QR code menus and disposable dishes when dining in.

Too light

Pamela Braren takes her Starbucks coffee with half a packet of Sugar in the Raw and a smidgen of milk. When a harried barista heeds her request to doctor the brew, it typically comes out too light, she said. When they dispense the milk on the side, Braren ends up with a lamentable waste.

“I think the baristas are young, and probably not drinking straight coffee, so they just don’t understand," said Braren, a 52-year-old accountant from Westwood, Mass., and Starbucks shareholder who has dialed back visits to every few months from several times a week because of the squirreled-away condiments.

Starbucks customers may have a sympathetic ear to their condiments crisis in new Chief Executive Brian Niccol. While Niccol’s 19-year-old daughter gets her drinks loaded up by novelties like Vanilla Sweet Cream Cold Foam, he sticks to basic Americanos. Niccol has said the chain has work to do to run cafes that consumers actually want to visit, and he aims to get on it.

Starbucks, the world’s biggest coffee chain by locations and sales, long had a section of the store devoted to a table typically featuring whole and reduced-fat milks, soymilk, packets of sugar, Stevia and other sweeteners, along with chocolate powder, cinnamon, nutmeg, vanilla powder and other accouterment.

Baristas in charge

Many coffee shops locked away self-service condiments when health authorities feared Covid could spread on surfaces. Around 2021, Starbucks opted to keep milk and sugar sequestered behind the counter at stores it owned, putting baristas in charge of doling them out. The company said at the time the move would be less wasteful.

A Reddit post from around that time sparked nearly 150 responses, with many baristas trashing the change for adding yet another task to their syrup and foam juggling.

“I’ve never seen so many grown women and men have actual temper tantrums over literal milk," a barista said at the time.

Some cafe owners axed the condiment bar long before the pandemic, arguing they are a waste of space and time. Many health departments require cafes to toss milk sitting on a counter after a set period, or plunge the containers into messy ice baths.

Plus, there’s theft. Sweetener packets can disappear by the fistful, particularly painful for owners as sugar prices have risen. Los Angeles bagel shop owner Jason Kaplan has always had workers add coffee condiments, even if it means customers’ indulgences are publicized when orders are called out.

“If you want milk and four sugars, everyone’s going to know about it," said Kaplan, owner of Maury’s Bagels, who equates his practices to the New York City coffee cart tradition.

Cafes that restored condiment bars view them as a perk. Dunn Brothers Coffee believes customers should have their coffee exactly as they want it, and the company can deal with any mess that comes with a self-service station, said Alexis Gillette, vice president of marketing for the Minneapolis-based chain of around 50 shops.

“If you want two of this, 10 of that, swirled around six times and sing the rain dance, whatever it is, we want to accommodate you," she said.

Stuckey McIntosh remembers when he could easily tailor his java to the darkness of the coffee’s roast with help from the condiment bar. The chain’s Sumatra roast needed more milk, and Pike Place didn’t. It’s too complicated these days to get into the weeds with a busy barista about his tastes, said the 73-year-old electrical engineer from Atlanta.

“All great chefs know that you make something and then you taste it. If it’s not right, you fix it with additives. Same for coffee," said McIntosh, who brought a Keurig and a small refrigerator for cream to meet his coffee needs at the office.

Joshua Morris, a 40-year-old former Starbucks barista in Philadelphia, said he first would add milk for customers and ask if the color was right. Some would push the cup back and he’d have to make a new one. Pouring milk in a cup for customers didn’t solve the problem: many would only use a couple of drops, wasting the rest.

“Everyone has their own preference," said Morris, who remembers the type of customers who wanted 26 sugars and a precise amount of milk, slowing down service for everyone else.

A Starbucks spokesman said baristas’ expertise in customizing beverages has always been at the heart of the company’s offering.

Some Starbucks locations still have condiment bars. Licensees, which run locations in airports, grocery stores, hotels and elsewhere, were allowed to bring back the bars if they wished.

Larry Casper, a 78-year-old financial adviser in Asheville, N.C., said he misses the tradition of adding his own sugar, but the baristas at his local Starbucks have come to care about his needs.

“I keep changing. I was getting two shots of vanilla every day, so they gave that to me automatically. I started adding one sugar, so they ask now," he said.

Write to Heather Haddon at heather.haddon@wsj.com