Starbucks was back in business on Saturday after a computer outage forced thousands of its stores to close early the night before. The company said the outage was resolved on Friday night after several hours. The glitch affected registers at 7400 company operated stores in the US and 1000 in Canada, and prompted some stores to give away drinks. “All Starbucks stores in the US and Canada are expected to open for business as usual on Saturday,” the company said in a statement late on F
riday.
“We apologise to our customers for this inconvenience.”
Starbucks said the outage was caused by “a failure during a daily system refresh”.
Jim Olson, a company spokesman, stressed it was an internal issue and that no external breach was involved.
The problem began in the evening Friday on the East Coast, with workers posting hand written Cash Only signs on windows and giving away free drinks and food because they were unable to ring up orders on registers.
Starbucks initially said stores would remain open during the outage, then changed course and said it decided to close shops early.
AP
