Warning: What follows is possibly the hardest-hitting journalism on the web today.
*
*
*
Something’s up with the paper towels at Starbucks.
I thought, until I sat down and started to write this, that they were napkins, and that various Starbucks in the Austin area had been replacing paper towels with napkins due to, I don’t know, some kind of shortage. I first noticed it during Covid, which is why I assumed there was a shortage involved, and back then, I think they really were napkins at the Starbucks in my neighborhood. But then, as I thought about it more, I realized that whatever was in the paper towel dispenser on Monday was not a Starbucks napkin. Starbucks napkins are rougher, thicker—more durable. This thing was soft, and it kind of disintegrated while it dried my hands.
What is happening?
It’s possible they really were napkins, and that I’m remembering this wrong. But I do know that whatever these things were, they weren’t wide enough to fill the paper towel dispenser. There was an unsettling gap on either side, like someone—and I do remember this happening, this is the part I noticed during Covid—made up for a paper towel absence by inserting napkins in their space.
So, the other possibility?
Starbucks changed its paper towels.
And it hasn’t changed all its dispensers yet to match them.
This doesn’t make sense either, though, because if Starbucks was going to change its paper towels, it’d either be to make them cheaper (what’s cheaper than the original paper towel) or make them more eco-friendly, and I haven’t seen a peep from the mermaid touting the new, more compostable paper towels. If there is a change, it’s inexplicable, and it’s happening under our noses.
More investigation awaits.
