One person's good deed turned into an epic act of kindness when nearly 400 customers at a Florida Starbucks paid for the next person's drink.
The 'pay it forward' chain started Wednesday morning at 7 a.m. when a woman at a Starbucks drive-thru in St. Petersburg bought an iced coffee and paid for the caramel macchiato the person behind her ordered, the Tampa Bay Times reported. That customer did the same for the next.
For the next 11 hours, 378 customers who visited the Starbucks all paid for the next person's drink. Employees were able to keep a tally on a piece of green paper near the drive-thru window.
When customers pulled up to the window, Vu Nguyen, a 29-year-old barista, told them their drink was already paid for and asked if they wanted to pay for the next. The chain reached 260 customers by 1:30 p.m., the newspaper reported.
Some customers told the Tampa Bay Times they only paid because they didn't want to be the one who ruined the chain. Others said it made them feel closer to the person who paid for them.
"It's nice just to do a random act of kindness for someone you don't know," said Tim Burnside, 19, who paid it forward earlier Wednesday. He returned later in the day to see if the chain was ongoing an ended up paying for another person's drink.
If the chain lasted until closing at 10 p.m., the employees thought about putting the leftover money on a gift card and starting again the next day.
But that idea was scrapped by 6 p.m. when the 379th customer at the drive-thru declined to pay for the next person's order. The woman said she just wanted to pay the $2.25 for her own drink, the newspaper reported.
Nguyen said she doesn't think the woman understood the idea of paying it forward.