Maddie Brown (@maddievbrown) has a running bit on her TikTok videos: she walks into Starbucks locations, grabs a mobile order off the pickup shelf that doesn’t belong to her, and reviews it from her car.<\/p>\n
In a recent installment, she tagged Austin, Texas. There she reportedly made off with a grande s’mores Frappuccino belonging to a customer named Katy C.<\/p>\n
Brown rates it a 6.7 out of 10.<\/p>\n
The Starbucks caper<\/p>\n
Brown opens the clip by re-establishing the premise for anyone new to the feed. “Come with me to take somebody’s mobile order and, like, find a drink that I like,” she says. “Austin, Texas edition.”<\/p>\n
She acknowledges the pushback from a previous installment before proceeding. “I did see comments on my last one. People [said I was] cold and heartless, so I waited till the afternoon so I wasn’t pissing anyone off before work,” she says. “I do have a heart.”<\/p>\n
Inside, she scans the pickup shelf and lands on her mark. “Slay, we’re back. I did want a coffee, but this\u2026 banging,” she says. “We have Katy C. Katy C. got a grande s’mores frappuccino. I didn’t even know they made this s***.”<\/p>\n
Are Starbucks mobile orders prone to theft?<\/p>\n
The nasty part of why Brown’s series works is that the pickup shelf is functionally unguarded. It’s a vulnerability the restaurant industry has quietly conceded is expensive. Apex Order Pickup Solutions stated<\/a> that operators lose roughly six to eight orders a day per location, translating to roughly $100 a day in a quick-service format.<\/p>\n