To get or not to get your Starbucks in Ridgefield, CT

Kitchen Oil: Not Applicable
Spoon Rating: Two
Recommended for: Garlic allergies, Gluten allergy if cross contamination is not an issue for you
Not recommended for : Soy Allergy, Nut Allergy, Milk Allergy

As a company The King's Taster would best describe Starbucks as late to the game because until recently their website only posted nutritional information for their food menu items. We are happy to see that they have recently corrected what we considered a huge over-site of their customers needs by posting a complete list of ingredients and highlighting major food allergens for each of their food items on their web-site. That said most of us don't go to Starbucks to eat we go to Starbucks for their drinks and here they are still lacking. Their web-site does not cotain any allergen information for their beverages. Here is their disclaimer in this regard:

 "Allergen information is currently unavailable online for our beverage selections.  We are actively working to bring that information to you.  If you have an allergen concern, please feel free to ask our baristas to check the ingredient labels or call 1-800-235-2883 for more information.  Please note: we cannot guarantee that any of our beverages are allergen free because we use shared equipment and handle allergens throughout the store."

The King's taster following their web-sites suggestion attempted to find individual ingredients for a beverage item when visiting their Ridgefield location and the baristas were helpful in locating ingredients for each of the items used in the beverage we ordered but they did so by searching out the boxes the items came in and allowing us to read the ingredients lists. Not the most effective way to find out if you can have a drink not to mention the huge line our request caused. That said we found a drink that did not contain any of the allergens we were trying to avoid. however, and this is where Starbucks gets tricky they are not kidding about the shared equipment. As recently as today I observed a barista use a spoon for soy milk and then put it directly into the container labeled for milk. So even though the pitchers they use are labeled soy and milk the potential for cross contamination if you have a soy or milk allergy is HUGE. So please be aware of this when ordering your drinks. In our opinion the safest bet for ordering food at Starbucks is to by their prepackaged items and personally we have found this a very successful way to buy a safe snack when in a hurry. The most worrisome comment we have about Starbucks is not about this specific location but about the brand in general. When we sent them a detailed list of queries about their allergy policy we received no response. To blatantly ignore a customers request for allergy information is beyond stupid in our opinion. Our spoon rating reflects this ignorance because it seems to be prevalent at all levels. Other than the recent upgrade to their web-site and the accidentally convenient prepackaged foods Starbucks has not made a true effort to reach out to clients that have food allergies, which is why they have received a spoon rating of two.