making an appearance-New 20October2014Starting October 20, 2014, you might notice that your local Starbucks barista (at company-operated locations in the U.S.) has a new look. Starbucks has made its first official overhaul of the dress code in a long time. Some big changes include the following:

  • Tattoos are now permitted, so long as not on the face or throat, however they cannot be lewd or hateful.
  • Black denim jeans are now acceptable for your barista to wear.
  • A small nose stud is now okay.
  • Shirts no longer have to be tucked in.

There’s much more, but those are some of the major changes. The changes officially go into effect on Monday, October 20, 2014.

Just my two cents, but I suspect that we might still see very isolated, rare exceptions that will not follow this new dress code. I’m guessing that it’s possible that high-profile concept stores such as the Roastery or stores that have a unique partnership with other businesses (such as the Downtown Disney Starbucks) may set their own elevated dress code. Again, I’m making a wild guess (and could be wrong), and would still assume that the dress code as described above will cover 99.99% of the stores you visit in the U.S.

About one month ago, major news sites reported that Starbucks was re-evaluating their dress code. Now we have the official Starbucks new dress code. Let me know what you think! Please feel free to weigh in. I’d love to hear your thoughts.