Many of my readers will recognize the name Juan Valdez from a different Starbucks blog, namely, Starbucks Gossip. The famed store reviewer saddled up his burro and traveled all over the country rating and reviewing various Starbucks stores. He recently went into retirement, but the burro wanted to stretch his legs, and the beacon of the green siren called.  Thank you Juan Valdez for sharing your store review with StarbucksMelody.com. He stopped into a store in Silverdale, Washington, and here is his review:

Starbucks
2238 Bucklin Hill Road
Silverdale, Wa.

Greetings from the land of “I haven’t done a SBUX column in quite a while”.  Actually, I thought it might be a while longer before I once again darkened the doors of a Starbucks however, one morning last week, the burro began making weird grunting noises. At first I thought he’d eaten a bad batch of carrots but then, as I listened more closely, I realized he was asking if we could go visit the Space Needle.  Over the years, I’ve come to learn this is his code for “let’s go to a Starbucks and you can write a column about it.”  Don’t ask me why he has a code, he’s a burro for gosh sakes, who the hell knows why they do what they do.  And, of course, I had to do it because when you don’t do what a burro wants, they are prone to sudden and unexpected attacks of diarrhea which, as you can imagine, is not fun to be around.

So we visited the Starbucks on Bucklin Hill Road, just down by the water in Silverdale.  The store is located in a little strip mall (what a shock, a Starbucks in a strip mall) and the large windows offered a stunning view of a parking lot for as far as the eye can see.  This is a nice sized cafe store with lots of seating including several comfy chairs which, as you all know, are my favorite.  I got my drink in two minutes, selected a comfy chair and sat down to watch the action play out.

There were four partners on the floor and while they were polite and helpful, they weren’t particularly friendly. There were no real attempts to connect with either myself or any other customers that I saw (or heard).   Business was steady but not overly busy.  The lobby looked pretty good and, better yet, someone kept doing quick spins to keep it that way.

Too bad they didnt go in the bathroom.   There was the same paper debris on the floor when I left as when I came in.   There was a partial roll of toilet paper in the holder and another partial roll sitting on top of the holder.  Nice.  And, of course, the ever ready toilet brush sat in the corner, ready to spring into action at a moment’s notice.

My drink was the proper weight and temp and tasted quite good.

All in all, it was an average visit.  The partners could have definitely been more outgoing but at least they weren’t rude.  It was basically a strip mall experience for a strip mall store.

Rating:  C+

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If you enjoy reading store reviews, here are a few previous store reviews from this site (my own reviews):