9 Menu Items You Don't Want To Order At Starbucks

The first Starbucks may have opened in 1971, but it wasn't until the 1990s that Starbucks went public and began its rapid rise to the top. Today it may seem there is a Starbucks on every corner. And this may be true, with over 32,000 stores located in 80 countries. 

As someone who has been frequenting Starbucks for many years, I can affirm that some of its menu items are well worth the sometimes long wait in the drive-thru. However, others are not. And some items may have started out great, but have dropped in quality in recent years. Unfortunately, prices have only increased. Furthermore, employees have shared that Starbucks food is not prepared in stores but merely preheated as it arrives prepackaged and frozen. If you find yourself at Starbucks and you're wondering what you should order, you may want to steer clear of the following nine menu items.

There are two wraps currently on the Starbucks breakfast menu, and one of them is one of the healthiest choices among Starbucks food options. The Spinach, Feta, and Egg White Wrap comes in at only 290 calories. With classic Mediterranean flavors, only eight grams of fat, and 20 grams of protein, this breakfast choice appears to be a winner. The other wrap, the Bacon, Sausage, and Egg, is not nearly as healthy nutrition-wise but still sounds delicious for someone looking for a hearty breakfast choice. Unfortunately, these wraps don't measure up to expectations.

Since Starbucks food is not made on-site, but frozen and reheated before serving, these wraps are lacking in freshness. A proper wrap needs a fresh tortilla with just the right texture to wrap your ingredients. But when you bite into a Starbucks wrap, you get a tough, dry outer tortilla that is so thick and crispy, that it's almost like a cracker. The fillings inside are mostly flavorless. This Reddit user said, "I hate the spinach feta wrap. The ingredients sound enticing, it smells so good as it toasts, but it is so d*** bland." Another Reddit user said of the Bacon, Sausage, and Egg Wrap, "Absolutely no flavor. It's like flavor void," and "50% chance of undercooked potatoes." If you're looking for a fresh and tasty breakfast wrap, you're probably better off making your own copycat recipe.

Fresh tomatoes and mozzarella layered on a piece of chewy focaccia bread is one of the finer things in life. Perhaps that is why Starbucks' interpretation of the Tomato and Mozzarella on Focaccia is so disappointing. While the image of the sandwich on the official website looks delectable, customers have found that reality is something different entirely. The problem seems to lie with the food being preassembled ahead of time. This Starbucks supervisor explains on Reddit, "I went to cook a tomato mozzarella for a customer and thought it was a bit thin, looked inside and there was one tomato and two spinach leaves. No cheese. I've seen breakfast sandwiches with missing ingredients, had a sandwich that wasn't packaged with any bread at all." 

Another employee agreed, "My last tomato mozzarella had two leaves of spinach and mozzarella the size of quarters." Another customer shared a very disappointing-looking sandwich on a TikTok video that has received over 45,000 likes where she said for six or seven dollars, it's "totally not worth it." Ingredients for this sandwich are readily available at the grocery store. If you're craving a tomato and mozzarella panini, you will likely see better results making a pesto caprese recipe at home. 

You generally can't go wrong when you order a grilled cheese sandwich from just about any restaurant. Melted cheese between two slices of buttered bread and toasted to a golden perfection shouldn't be too hard to replicate. The Starbucks Crispy Grilled Cheese on Sourdough looks good enough on its website image and is described as, "A blend of white Cheddar and mozzarella cheeses on sourdough bread, topped with a Parmesan butter spread." However, when you order one of these sandwiches, you may find yourself with a greasy mess instead.

Admittedly, this sandwich does have its share of fans. This Starbucks employee said on Reddit, "My store typically sells out between deliveries." While another said, "It's actually super popular at my store." Although even the people who enjoy the sandwich agree that it's greasy, "I like it but I can never finish it because it's so greasy." While another said, " I don't like how greasy they get." The best way to eat the sandwich may be to take it home and cook it yourself. To improve the sandwich, one Starbucks Supervisor on Reddit suggests, "Take it home and let that baby pan fry (both sides) until crispy and melted in the middle. Low heat is best."

You would that expect a coffee shop known for its coffee drinks made from espresso would make an amazing espresso. Espresso isn't a coffee bean, but a specialized way of brewing coffee. A high-quality espresso is stronger than brewed coffee, but should never be bitter. A good espresso is smooth with a rich taste. The Starbucks website describes its espresso as "smooth" with, "rich flavor and caramelly sweetness." The espresso serves as the base for many of Starbucks' wide variety of coffee drinks. The espresso needs to be strong to still provide a taste of coffee among the flavors, syrups, and various milks in the drinks. Maybe this is why ordering a straight shot of espresso from Starbucks is a bad choice. 

Order a straight shot of espresso from Starbucks and you won't end up with a smooth, rich-flavored drink, but a bitter-tasting coffee with a burnt aftertaste. This Reddit user explains, "Starbucks knows that its espresso is mostly consumed in flavored drinks, not by itself. It's not designed to be consumed by itself. It's meant to be so bitter that you can still taste something coffee-like underneath 16 or 20 ounces of milk and flavored syrup." If you want a simple shot of espresso, you're probably better off finding a local coffee shop or buying your own espresso machine over ordering an espresso shot from Starbucks.

At the heart of every quick-service restaurant that serves breakfast are its breakfast sandwiches. Of course, people going through a drive-thru are likely not expecting to find gourmet dining. And, Starbucks' focus is on coffee, not food. However, the higher prices and high-quality reputation create some level of expectation in the chain's offerings. A breakfast sandwich from Starbucks should not be somewhat above the quality of a pre-packaged breakfast sandwich you can find at the gas station for a few dollars. However, the breakfast sandwiches at Starbucks don't offer much beyond microwaved gas station options. Even worse, there appears to be a quality control issue, as I can attest, I have several times ordered various breakfast sandwiches from my local Starbucks to find they weren't heated long enough and were still cold in the middle.

As this Starbucks employee on Reddit states, "They are mass-produced flash frozen sandwiches thawed out and heated up in a quick cook convection oven. They are literally on par, quality-wise, with 99-cent gas station sandwiches." Another employee agreed, "I have no idea why people buy them. They're totally unhealthy, they don't taste good, and they're incredibly expensive for previously frozen mass-produced food that we're just reheating. We only eat them because it's free, and even then it's usually with some reluctance."

Swapping out a sugary iced coffee drink for an energy drink at Starbucks will save you calories. A 24-ounce (Venti) Tropical Citrus Iced Energy drink has only five calories as opposed to 180 calories in the same-sized Iced Latte. The amount of caffeine is similar in both (205 milligrams in the energy drink to 225 in the iced latte), which, as it turns out, is a lot of caffeine. In fact, it's around half the recommended amount of caffeine per day for an adult, according to the Mayo Clinic. But we aren't looking at nutrition here, we are interested in taste. Unfortunately, the Tropical Citrus Iced Energy drink doesn't get high marks for flavor.

Online reviews trend to the negative with this Redditor saying of the drink, "It tastes disgusting and the sweetener aftertaste is gross and I tossed it." Another person agreed and compared it to a colonoscopy prep, saying, "This is a terrible drink!" Finally, this review on Reddit said, "They taste like someone chewing on a starburst spit on a bandaid and made me drink it." 

Protein boxes are an excellent idea for dealing with mid-day munchies. You can grab a high-quality, healthy snack rather than succumbing to unhealthy chips or sweets. Starbucks protein boxes may have begun as a tasty alternative to processed food but appear to have deteriorated over time. Today, it's hard to justify their price for what you get.

Starbucks offers a variety of boxes including Eggs and Gouda, Cheese Trio, and Cheese and Fruit. But if you've ordered one of these lately, you may have been disappointed at what you received. This customer on Reddit explains, "As a customer & frequent protein box buyer, yes, they have absolutely gone down in quality. The last couple I bought had bad fruit & teeny tiny pieces of cardboard-tasting cheese. I'm done with them." While this employee said, "I hate our protein boxes. The grapes are mushy by the time we get them in our delivery and are inedible at that point. Why do we even sell them." 

Aside from the quality of the food, the amount of food seems to have decreased as well. As one Redditor describes, "They changed the crackers. Then, at many Starbucks locations, the fruit changed from fresh to dried. Then, the quality of the brie cheese decreased. And, recently, it looks like there's one less cracker per box. There's also less fruit."

While Starbucks isn't known for offering donuts, it does have one donut option on the menu. The Glazed Donut is an old-fashioned cake donut, and it's glazed with a sugary icing. While it sounds like a nice pairing to go with a steaming cup of coffee, some donut connoisseurs may find it a bit of a disappointment. Like the other food options, employees report the donuts arrive at the stores frozen and in plastic packaging. From my experience, the donut is dry and could benefit from a quick warm-up in the oven, however, as this employee on Reddit explained, the icing melts when heated and could result in having to shut down the entire oven to clean it, or if left unattended, "it could start a fire." 

Other Starbucks employees have reported slow donut sales, revealing this item is not well-loved among customers: "I sold six donuts today. That's gotta be a new store record at my location." Another employee agreed saying, "We might sell 72 Bacon Goudas and two donuts in the same day." Overall, the donut is the worst item on the menu, but for the price ($2.85 at my local store) and the readily availability of donut shops everywhere that sell freshly made donuts, this item is a miss.

I am not sure if the problem with this drink is the drink itself, or the fact that it's combined with Oleato Golden Foam. The Paradise Drink Refreshers Beverage with Oleato Golden Foam is described on the Starbucks website as "tropical flavors of pineapple and passionfruit combine with pieces of pineapple and creamy coconut milk" and is topped with an "extra virgin olive oil infused cold foam."

The problem may lie in the Oleato. This Barista described the Oleato on Reddit by saying, "The taste is meh, but I just find the texture completely disgusting. I feel like I'm drinking sink scum." Another person agreed, "Honestly it tastes terrible to me. My coworker and I gagged when we tried it." Adding the golden foam to the citrusy drink makes for a controversial choice, but not everyone is against it, with this Starbucks Supervisor saying, "Don't knock it til you try it."

Although this list describes nine menu items I never want to order from Starbucks again, there are plenty of drinks and bakery items on the menu that I find delicious. The Pineapple Cloud Cake is one of my favorite new options, and I will always love the Pumpkin Spice Latte. However, I can't help but think with these nine items, Starbucks could do better. My methodology combined my personal experience with online reviews from customers and employees. I relied on the taste, presentation, and texture of the food without too much emphasis placed on nutrition.