HOUSTON – Let's face it -- drinking designer coffee and espresso has become part of the morning grind. But how long are you willing to wait for that cup?
To find out, Channel 2 Investigates visited 16 coffee shops over four days. The goal was to time our coffee purchase at every store from the moment we stepped through the door to the exact second we received that drink.
We visited Starbucks, Dunkin' Donuts and McDonalds locations in Houston, Katy, Pearland and Spring in a real-life test to find the shortest and the longest wait times.
We went every morning from 8 to 10 a.m., ordered the same drink at every stop -- a medium latte -- and timed the wait from walk-in to delivery.
The fastest cup came at the Starbucks at 19914 Park Row Drive in Katy. The total wait time there was 1 minute, 9 seconds.
The slowest delivery came at the McDonalds at 4920 Kirby Drive in Houston. The total wait time there was 5 minutes, 6 seconds.
After crunching the numbers, Channel 2 found the average wait time at the Starbucks locations we visited was 2 minutes, 50 seconds.
The average wait time at Dunkin' Donuts was just 6 seconds slower at 2 minutes, 56 seconds.
And the average wait at McDonalds was 3 minutes, 37 seconds.
But probably the most interesting thing we found was that the shortest average wait times for a cup of specialty coffee came at the Starbucks restaurants located in grocery stores like Kroger, Randall's and Target. The average wait time there was 2 minutes, 39 seconds.
The results of the entire test are listed below, along with an official statement from Dunkin' Donuts.