Vista Starbucks employee infuses his personality into customers’ drinks
For 23-year-old Mikel Bethea, a cup of coffee is more than just a beverage.
Originally from South Carolina, Mikel, who goes by Mike, works as a Starbucks barista in the Vista. But he isn’t just any ordinary barista. A slim and energetic, 5-foot-9 African-American male with a smile as big as his hair, Mike stands out. He has an unusual passion for his customers, a passion that translates directly into the coffee he makes.
“I want to talk to them. I want to make them feel better,” he said. “If people are having a bad day, if you’re feeling down, if something happened to you, you come to Starbucks and we’re just supposed to lift you up.”
This attitude is perhaps what keeps customers coming back for more. For the small city of Columbia, Mike is a popular guy. On any given night, throngs of people come to the Vista to chat with him or just say hi and get a personalized cup of coffee made.
“I think your attitude has a big effect on how your drinks turn out, and I think people really can tell the difference,” he said. “You can just take the ingredients and slosh it around, but when you really take care and present a drink to them that’s orchestrated well, they really can tell and they really appreciate that.”
In terms of coffee-making, Mike is a bit of a rebel. He takes the specific preferences of all his customers — various syrups, whole milk, skim milk, espresso shots — and creates combinations just for them, combinations that often deviate from Starbucks’s traditional lattes and frappuccinos.
“They have the top guys to tell you to put this much of this to make it come out perfect, but I’m not a machine. I’m a person with a personality and I’m going to hook it up the way I want to hook it up,” he said. “It’s still Starbucks, but Mike’s way.”
In his mental reservoir, Mike remembers around 150 drinks of his regular customers.
But Mike’s life hasn’t been as easy as his sunny personality makes it out to be. His father died when he was 15 years old, throwing his family into poverty. He was the oldest male in a family of five, and bore the responsibility of helping support his mother, two sisters and younger brother. Since then, his perspectives on life have taken a turn.
“We learn through suffering,” he said. “So the whole thing now is to overcome life and make sure nothing can ever get me down anymore. Not a person, nobody’s attitude, not the loss of a loved one. You just have to be strong and know there’s going to be a better result.”
For Mike, that better result started with Starbucks three years ago. Starting at a Starbucks in Kansas, Mike has built a large customer base over time and has made the coffee shop chain his window into the world around him. His connections to various industries are the customers that he has fostered relationships with.
He eventually plans to open his own coffee shop, but he said that won’t be until further down the road. The secret to success in the coffee industry, according to Mike, isn’t really about the coffee. It’s about the people.
“Honestly, that’s all it is, your personality. People don’t care if you serve them crappy coffee. If you make them laugh and they have a good time while they’re there, they’re gonna come back, no matter what.”
Just like any other 20-something, Mike wants to change the world, but he wants to do it by being a positive influence in the lives of others, by combating negative forces, one cup at a time.
“I think I got put in Starbucks to fight that challenge,” he says. “I don’t want to be another cause in the world of bad karma. You do good things, and good things come around, not just for you, but for other people too.”
In his spare time in between cups of coffee, Mike said he’s training steadily to run in the 2016 Olympics. A man of many interests, he’s also working on a screenplay that he hopes to make into a film in the near future. The subject of his screenplay? The ins and outs of a coffee shop, inspired, of course, by Starbucks.
Mike smiles and nods confidently. “It’s gonna be a classic.”
More Like This
Column: Religion has place in education
By Graham Glusman | Dec. 1, 2015