Deaf Starbucks Customer Uses Sign Language With Barista to Place Her Order

Besides being one of the largest coffee houses in the country, Starbucks Corporation is also setting the bar for the way customers place their orders. A recent viral video has taken the Internet by storm, showing a barista helping a deaf woman with her order by using sign language.

Rebecca King, who is deaf, pulled up to her local Starbucks in St. Augustine, Fla., on Monday (Nov. 2) and was greeted by a friendly face on the coffeehouse's menu screen. The video initially shows a barista greeting King through the drive-thru speaker with no response, but a few moments later 22-year-old Katie Wyble appeared on the screen to assist her.

With Wyble's help, 28-year-old King was able to use sign language to place her order. Excited and pleased about her surprising interaction at Starbucks, King posted a video to her Facebook the following day (Tuesday, Nov. 3) to share with friends. The video has since racked up over six million views.

"It is a big deal to (the) deaf community that Starbucks has one now. Nowhere else has that!" King told NBC affiliate WTLV in Jacksonville. "We all want to have that at every drive-thru in the world."

According to The Huffington Post, St. Augustine has an extremely large deaf community and is also home to Florida School for the Deaf and the Blind. Through a new digital video feature, this Starbucks is helping more customers communicate.

Wyble, a communications major at the University of North Florida, started studying sign language in elementary school and continued with it in college, according to WTLV. She admitted how much she loves the language and how excited she was to use the new feature at her job.

"I'm glad that there's more awareness for deaf culture and the deaf community,'' Wyble told WTLV. "To see this come to light and actually be a part of it, I feel so blessed."

There is no word yet on whether this feature will expand to Starbucks across the country.

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