Starbucks Computer Glitch Disrupts Stores In Bay Area, Throughout U.S. And Canada
SAN FRANCISCO (CBS SF) -- Starbucks locations in the Bay Area and throughout the United States and Canada were impacted by a computer glitch that lasted for several hours on Friday.
Point of sale terminals were not working at thousands of stores coast to coast and north of the border starting in the late afternoon. The coffee giant announced late Friday night that the outage has been resolved.
Point of sale register outage is resolved; @Starbucks stores expected to open normally on Saturday http://t.co/mVe4v7DYd9
— Starbucks News (@StarbucksNews) April 25, 2015
The closest Starbucks location to the CBS San Francisco newsroom near Pacific and Battery closed early due to the glitch. KPIX 5's Ken Bastida said he was at the Starbucks location when the outage happened and received a free drink.
Other locations gave away drinks for free, with many customers taking to Twitter to post locations and their drinks.
#Starbucks computers are down in parts Southern California. How widespread is this crisis? @CBSSF pic.twitter.com/IpJ7h6U4wF
— Kiet Do (@kietdo) April 25, 2015
Considering they're giving away free drinks, this #Starbucks is surprisingly empty pic.twitter.com/Vv9LYXzG5C
— Xylin Hawkins (@TimmyWolfie) April 25, 2015
seems like some #Starbucks computers are down here in #Vegas, & they are giving away a complimentary drink. pic.twitter.com/HHIUaXhKiA
— Neb Solomon (@nebsolomon) April 25, 2015
A reporter from CBS affiliate KIRO-TV in Seattle found customers who took advantage of the outage.
After customers walked out of @Starbucks with armloads of free drinks, a manager told us "We're ordered to close now" pic.twitter.com/V3IJLNcyY1
— Gary Horcher (@GaryKIRO7) April 25, 2015
CNNMoney reported that the outage was not a case of hacking. "The point of sale cash registers are down in the U.S. and Canada. It is not a hack. It happened during a typical daily menu refresh on the system," Starbucks spokesperson Jim Olson said.