Does the Starbucks in the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel really have a dress code?

‘Twas in a binder on the desk of a Waldorf-Astoria guest room where we happened upon Exhibit A, which suggests that, apparently, old lady Waldorf has the fanciest Starbucks in all the land. Yes, it would appear that this particular outpost of the corporate coffee palace has a dress code.


Though “smart casual” is certainly open to interpretation, we understood it to mean that adding flip-flops to the ensemble we wore the previous night and sauntering into the ‘bucks for our post-dawn venti Americano was not acceptable.


And not only does the Waldorf’s Starbucks close at 6:00 pm – a bummer for the caffeine-addicted and the sugar-dependent, which we learned when we encountered bare shelves upon entering at 5:15 pm on weekday – but the staffers are totally clueless…about the dress code, that is. (See what we did there?)


In other words, when we asked the (very, very friendly!) gentleman behind the counter if he enforces the “smart casual” dress code on the other side of his register, he said exactly this: “Huh? The what? No.” So, you know – don’t panic. Everything's cool.