Customers at Starbucks were getting free coffee Friday evening after a computer glitch.
Reports of the glitch started on social media shortly after 4 p.m.
KIRO 7 reporter Alison Grande went into a North Seattle Starbucks to check it out. The baristas saw her red KIRO coat and were reluctant to comment. After ordering a latte, she was told, "it's on us" when trying to pay. Customers going through the drive-thru were told it was a computer glitch. One woman held up a Frappucino and a venti iced tea -- both free.
In Los Angeles, BuzzFeed deputy news director Jon Passantino tweeted that all drinks were free to those in line because of a computer issue. Shortly before 5 p.m. he tweeted a photo of a barista posting a sign that read in part, "Due to a computer malfunction we will only be able to accept cash (exact change only). Sorry for the inconvenience."
KIRO 7 called Starbucks and received this statement shortly before 5:45 p.m.:
"We are aware of the point of sale register outage at company-operated Starbucks stores in the U.S. and Canada. We are actively working to resolve the outage and our stores will remain open and continue to serve our customers. The outage was caused by a failure during a daily system refresh. We apologize to our customers for any inconvenience or confusion and will update this statement once systems are back online. This outage also effects our Evolution Fresh and Teavana stores."
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