Robber serves coffee

Special thanks goes out to SCF reader linnea_may for the story!

Courtesy of SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER

MONROE -- A man and woman robbed a busy Starbucks early yesterday morning and wound up serving coffee through the drive-up window for at least 30 minutes to make additional cash. They then waited until business slowed enough to make a getaway.

Neither police nor Starbucks would say how much money the pair made off with.

Police arrested two suspects Tuesday night after trailing their car from the Lake Stevens area to a service station. A witness identified the pair as the barista bandits, police said in a news release.

No one was injured in the early-morning holdup, and no property was damaged, said Jan O'Neil, Monroe police spokeswoman. But the incident was "weird and stressful" for the employees.

According to police accounts, a tall, slender woman approached the store before it opened and asked to use the restroom.

While the woman -- who was in her 20s and had short, dark hair -- was in the restroom, a short man with a pierced eyebrow and eyeglasses, wearing a black jacket over a gray suit, also entered the store.

Shortly afterward, the pair came to the front counter brandishing a gun and demanded the manager open the safe.

After being robbed of their cash shortly after 5 a.m., when the coffee shop normally opens, the baristas were then forced at gunpoint for a half-hour to help the robbers make and sell coffee to customers in the drive-up window.

The suspects fled in a small, dark sedan with a large round sticker in the upper-left back window.

The Starbucks that was robbed is a small store, primarily serving drive-up customers, in a corner of a Fred Meyer strip mall where U.S. Highway 2 intersects with state Route 522. Mornings offer a steady stream of commuters on the four-lane highway that runs past the little coffee shop.

"It's a good little town, it really is," said State Farm agent Keith Akins, whose office is two doors down from the coffee shop. "But it's when you're dealing with Highway 2 here, it starts turning into (the likes of) Lynnwood."

Akins arrived at work after the robbery and stopped by the Starbucks for a mocha and "to see what happened." He usually does not buy coffee there, he said.

"I just felt bad for the girls inside," he added.

Company spokeswoman Lara Wyss said there was not a lot to say about the robbery.

But in a statement yesterday, Starbucks Coffee Co. said it "places its highest priority on partner and customer safety, and we take appropriate security measures. ..."