This was one of many alleged disrespectful incidents that took off on social media this past week. I suspect it’s not the only one that was bullshit:
A viral social media video this week claimed that employees at a Norwood Park Starbucks wrote “Loser” on a drink ordered in honor of slain conservative activist Charlie Kirk. An online furor followed, and the coffee shop even closed temporarily.
But Starbucks now says that time-stamped footage from the store at 6332 N. Northwest Highway does not show any of its workers writing that message. Instead, the note appears “to have been added after the beverage was handed off, likely by someone else,” a spokesperson told Block Club.
The controversy started with a post Tuesday from Jacqueline Garretson, who, according to her X bio, is the Illinois state director for The Conservative Caucus and previously worked as a staffer for failed Republican attorney general candidate Thomas DeVore. Garretson wrote that a relative, whom she later identified as her mother-in-law, ordered the Mint Majesty tea with two honeys — an order known to be Kirk’s favorite drink — from the Starbucks. When the order was completed, the cup had “Loser” written on it, Garretson said.
Garretson encouraged followers to call Starbucks and report the incident. She later posted two videos of her and an unidentified man confronting workers at the Norwood Park Starbucks.
“I’m talking 5 p.m. today, I want some form of action to the employee that represents this business that wrote ‘Loser’ on my mother’s cup,” the man, who is not seen on-camera, can be heard saying in the video, which was posted Wednesday. “We’re looking for not corporate bureaucracy. I want immediate accountability; and if not, I will have this whole intersection lined with patriots today, I’m not even joking,” the man told a Starbucks employee.
The videos received more than 40,000 likes on X. On Wednesday evening, Garretson posted that she went back to the Norwood Park Starbucks at 5 p.m. and found a sign that said the business was temporarily closed. “Thank you to everybody that called, stopped in to order Charlie’s drink and put in complaints with corporate. Over the past 24 hours we have SHUT THEM DOWN,” Garretson wrote in text over the video.
In an email to Block Club, a Starbucks spokesperson confirmed the Norwood Park location was closed for “a portion of the day” Wednesday. However, the spokesperson said the company reviewed timestamped in-store video footage and found the note was not written by a Starbucks employee. The note appears “to have been added after the beverage was handed off, likely by someone else,” the spokesperson said.
The Norwood Park Starbucks was back open Thursday, the spokesperson said.
She just wanted in on the fun. Everyone else got someone fired for saying something they didn’t like. Why shouldn’t she just because she couldn’t find anyone who’d done it?
And anyway, it’s good career move. She’s got game.