Schultz said he experienced the problem himself when he visited a Chicago location at 8 a.m.

“Everyone shows up, and all of a sudden we got a mosh pit, and that’s not Starbucks,” Schultz said on the “Acquired” episode.

Making mobile orders more efficient is one of the key ways Niccol can reduce crowding at Starbucks.

When Schultz was building Starbucks to become the coffee behemoth it is today, he positioned it as a “third place” between work and home. Since then, the chain has lost that reputation as more customers lean on the convenience of mobile ordering and prefer not to linger at its cafes.

“Because it’s a beverage, and because I’m frequently consuming it in the car or on the go, it needs to be incredibly convenient,” Byrne said.

But Starbucks also didn’t make significant adjustments to its operations to anticipate that shift in consumer behavior.

In 2017, Schultz stepped down as CEO for the second time, handing the reins to Kevin Johnson. Prior to joining the coffee chain as its chief operating officer, Johnson served as chief executive of Juniper Networks, a tech company. Under his leadership, Starbucks invested in technology and kept growing digital sales, but restaurant operations were already struggling when he left the company.

Schultz stepped back in as interim CEO when Johnson retired in 2022.

“The company did not do a good job of anticipating the technological refinements that needed to be put in place to avoid what was happening. … The stock was at record high, the company was not investing ahead of the curve, not paying attention to the velocity of the mobile app and what it was becoming until it was too late,” Schultz said.

Shareholders have also experienced the frustration with digital orders — and see it as a critical area for Niccol to address.

“The problem you have in New York City, for example, is what is the wait time,” said Nancy Tengler, CEO and chief investment officer of Laffer Tengler Investments, which owns shares of both Starbucks and Chipotle. “And then the mobile orders taking precedence over the in-store orders. [Niccol’s] going to have to flip that somehow to get people to spend more time and more money in stores.”

The mobile-order issues have added pressure on baristas. Burnout, fueled in part by the app, helped inspire some employees to unionize, beginning in 2021.

This November, Starbucks Workers United, which now represents workers at roughly 450 of the chain’s U.S. stores, pressed the company to turn off mobile ordering when it’s running promotions. (Starbucks said at the time that it was already in the process of making the change possible.)

Narasimhan has largely stuck to that strategy. This February, its mobile app finally started showing customers the progress of their orders, giving them a better idea of when their drinks will be ready. And in late July, Starbucks rolled out its “Siren Craft System” across North America, a series of processes to make drinks faster and baristas’ jobs easier.

But the problem for Starbucks, could require more drastic measures.

For example, the equipment rollout has been slow, with roughly 40% of North American locations expected to install the new machines by the end of fiscal 2026. Speeding up that timeline could cut service times in half — as promised at the investor day in 2022 — and reduce the strain on baristas.

“It’s not an easy lift by any means to do that, like that’s going to take time and training and investment and [capital expenditure],” TD Cowen analyst Andrew Charles said.

“In our view, Brian has tremendous credibility, where if he tells investors, ‘This is the answer to the problem we’re having,’ and can explain why he believes that — he’s going to get a pass,” Charles said.