'The Rock' brings Southern hospitality to Starbucks

A customer approached the counter at Starbucks and showed her engagement ring to the woman at the cash register.

The response was an exclamation, a rush around the counter and a hug.

That’s just normal human relations for Stefany Picquet, who works at the Starbucks on East Franklin Street.

Walk in anytime before 4 p.m., and you’re guaranteed to hear Picquet wish you a “super day.”

Friends said the full-time Starbucks employee, who is also known as “The Rock,” bubbles with personality from the moment she wakes up at 4:45 a.m. until she’s done for the day.

“It’s almost like night and day, the difference when she’s here and when she’s not here,” said Willie Bird, a Starbucks employee who has worked with Picquet for six months.

She’s hard to keep up with, and it’s not the result of caffeine, said Emily Glover, Picquet’s fiancée and a graduate student at UNC.

Most regular customers personally know “The Rock,” who gets her nickname from the first Starbucks job she had in Raleigh.

“It was back in 2000 when we had really bad ice storms,” Glover said. “She closed and opened the store for three days in a row by herself, so they gave her the name ‘The Rock,’ like the wrestler.”

Picquet grew up in Brooklyn Park, Minn., and attended the University of South Dakota as a criminal justice major, but didn’t graduate.

“I’m in the process of going back to school eventually,” she said. “I’m looking at studying computer technology at Durham Tech.”

After moving to North Carolina in 1999, Picquet became a full-time employee at a Starbucks in Raleigh.

“I wasn’t really in the community I wanted to be in,” she said. “But then I found this whole different community in Carrboro and met my fiancée.”

Picquet proposed to Glover in the rare books collection room in Wilson Library.

“Both of us love books, both of us love literature, and I have a masters in literature so it was perfect,” Glover said. “She has the biggest heart of anybody I know.”

Picquet also designed the magnolia-shaped ring she gave Glover. She said she chose the shape to symbolize her fiancée’s Southern background.

Picquet said she ultimately wants Starbucks to be that third place away from home or the office where people can come in and feel great.

“It’s about feeling welcome, knowing the customer’s name, knowing their drink,” she said. “It’s like Southern hospitality.

“I just like to know people. I think they’re totally fascinating.”

Picquet greets most regular Starbucks customers by their first name and asks them about their days and their lives.

“You see people every day and they each have a story,” she said. “You forget that just saying hi or being kind to people totally makes a difference.”

Monday, she greeted the old and the young, the long-haired and clean-cut, with the same enthusiasm.

Once she meets you, Glover said it’s nearly impossible to cut ties.

“Once you’re in with ‘The Rock,’ you’re pretty much in forever.”

Contact the City Editor at citydesk@unc.edu.