More from the article...

..."The lady at the register asked my name and I told her, and that was it," she said, noting that she used the Starbucks app to pay and verbally told the woman working her name was "Monique."...

Pugh said it was a long wait for her drink and she observed that everyone ahead of her was called by their name.

"I can see from a distance, a barista picks up (my) drink and she looks at it weird, says venti Caramel Frap' and backed away."

Pugh said she picked up the cup and saw the word "Monkey" on it....

Despite the distressing word on her cup, Pugh said, she initially just engaged with the nearest barista, a male, to try to get him to fix her drink, which was made incorrectly. She said that he was immediately "very combative and argumentative."

"He and I were going back and forth about whether the drink was made correctly and then I had to stop myself and realized monkey' was written on my cup," she said, adding she was the only Black person in the store at the time.

She said she asked the employee, "Why am I the only Black person in the store and 'monkey' is written on my cup?"...

@34 ... I'm not convinced this isn't just incompetence. ...

I'm about 60/40 on this, with the 40% part being "incompetence."

My reason for leaning towards intentional was the reaction of the other employees, then seemed to be less than willing to help.

@#6 ... Still probably incompetence....

I won't argue that, though I'll stay with my 60/40.

Re-reading #4 raises a good question... "if you use the Starbucks app to pay, why doesn't it populate your name into the order?"

Good question. I'd think it should. I'd think the app might even allow a "cup name" to be entered and used automatically on the receipt.

Maybe it does, and that name was overridden? I dunno.

But the reaction of the other employees still baffles me.

@#8 ... Why after all the African Americans served would the barista choose this one opportunity to be "racist"? ...

From the article...

..."He and I were going back and forth about whether the drink was made correctly and then I had to stop myselfand realized monkey' was written on my cup," she said, adding she was the only Black person in the store at the time....

Once again, the actions of the employees were odd.

It may be just an innocent mistake, and I laud Starbucks for the actions taken to correct it, but why should any customer of a store have to dealt with what this customer has dealt with?

The customer service at this Starbucks failed. Starbucks realized that, and took action to correct it.