walking . is . overrated

After gushing about how fantastic the disabled toilet at Starbucks in Ponsonby is, I feel it’s time for a degree of clarification. Because after careful analysis of my most oft-frequented Starbucks, next to Aotea Square on Queen Street, I’ve decided that as wheelchair-friendly as the Ponsonby Road store is, the Queen Street one certainly brings things down a notch.

Previously a Planet Hollywood outlet, and this is the reason for its bizarrely futuristic architecture, I like this Starbucks because a) It’s close to Uni, b) its windows looking down onto Queen St provides excellent opportunities for people-watching, and c) it’s a wireless hotspot. That’s pretty much where the positives end. It’s just the same old Starbucks coffee; overpriced and well, rubbish, and the same goes for the food - it’s always the same old stuff and looks like it’s been sitting there for days, don’t you agree? There are also tonnes of pigeons flying around, inside and out - I even had one attack my muffin once! Not cool, guys, not cool at all.

Anyway - onto the accessibility stuff. You enter through the Skycity Metro complex (accessible through a side ramp alongside Aotea Square) and through two sets of heavy pull doors. Even in a power wheelchair these are extremely heavy, and extremely uncool. Would sliding doors be that hard to install? I don’t think so. Anyway, once you negotiate those, there’s another set of pull/push doors to get into Starbucks itself. I like push doors. It turns my chair into a battering ram. The actual counter itself is at a reasonable height, and all the food is viewable through glass cabinets sitting at eye level. It’s when you’re waiting for your coffee that things start to get sticky. Not only do some of the staff seem to have very poor spoken English, but once prepared, they put the coffee on this pickup counter which is level with the top of my head! Needless to say, this is almost impossible for me to reach, and even more impossible for me to attempt to grasp the cup and pull my coffee down without spilling it all over me. What’s worse, is the poor coffee-making girl is so busy making coffee for other people that she can’t hear my squeaks for help from underneath this towering counter. I end up having to ask a fellow Starbuckser for help, which is usually cool, but it doesn’t change the frustration you feel from not being able to reach your coffee when you want to!

Oh, and it doesn’t have a toilet, accessible or otherwise. Luckily, there are plenty of wheelchair accessible public toilets within the Skycity Metro complex, which, when they’re not being used for sex-stops by emos, are clean and very suitable. Use at your own risk.

THE LOWDOWN

• Wireless hotspot
• Neat modern-looking place, great for people-watching
• Lots of room to move, all tables are accessible, little lip to get onto the balcony outside, should be okay for most wheelchair users to get over
• Accessible entry, albeit through three sets of heavy pull/push doors
• No bathroom (must use the ones within the Metro complex)
• Absurdly high counter to collect your coffee from, can be difficult to communicate with staff to explain that you can’t reach that high!
• Overall accessibility rating: 3 / 5