Your Starbucks Cup Now Comes With A Misspelled Name And An Unsolicited Life Lesson

The times are a-changing at Starbucks under CEO Brian Niccol. Ceramic mugs are back, extra charges for non-dairy milks like oat milk are getting ditched, and the menu is set to shrink by 30%, with items like the white hot chocolate, iced matcha lemonade, and various creamy and chocolatey frappuccinos set to vanish. But there's one specific change that's bothering some Starbucks baristas: The chain is asking them to write on cups again.

Starbucks was well-known for its practice of writing customers' names on cups (and often spelling them wrong) until the company stopped the practice during the COVID-19 pandemic. But the sharpies are back with a vengeance, with baristas now instructed to write uplifting, feel-good messages on cups, in addition to your name. The messages became mandatory as of late February 2025, with the chain purchasing some 200,000 markers to bring the policy back. The idea is that this will add a personal touch to customer service, making the chain feel like a more welcoming place.

The kinds of messages you'll see might include international quotes like "seize the day," generic compliments like "you're amazing," or simple greetings like "hello again," (which might be targeted at more regular customers). While Starbucks provided its staff with guidance on what to write (including a requirement that messages be positive), the exact messages are up to the baristas. They could range from simple heart or smiley face drawings up to more elaborate, multi-word comments.

While the new messages might be fun for some customers, that's not necessarily the case for the Starbucks workers who have to write them. Some baristas have noted that writing potentially long messages on every single individual cup could slow down service, particularly during rush hours. With that said, it seems that they may have some leeway to play it simple and just draw symbols like smiley faces if they're short on time. Some staff suggested that the attempt to be friendly and personal could just come across as forced and insincere. Others say that they just can't come up with that many interesting ideas for what to write.

Then there's the issue of how the messages are interpreted. There's the risk that a friendly message could be taken as flirtation, particularly with drawings like love hearts written on cups around Valentine's Day. Customers sometimes feel the same way, it seems. One viral Tiktok shows a cup with the unabashedly flirty message "xxx-xtra hot + extra creamy" written on it. (That said, it's impossible to tell whether this is a real message, as it's possible the TikTokker wrote it instead.) But there are certainly some customers who find the personalized messages charming, too. In any case, the new policy is probably less likely to cause drama than last time Starbucks pushed for messages that sought to start a conversation about racism to be written on cups back in 2015.