Starbucks customers got free coffee after its point-of-sale machines went down

A Starbucks point-of-sale outage was resolved after machines at company-owned locations in the US and Canada were forced to close early Friday evening.

During the outage, the company allowed its locations to remain open and continue serving customers free of charge, before closing some time later.

Here's the statement from the company:

The point of sale register outage has been resolved and all Starbucks stores in the U.S. and Canada are expected to open for business as usual on Saturday, April 25. We apologize to our customers for this inconvenience. Evolution Fresh and Teavana Tea Bar stores are expected to open as normal on Saturday as well. 

It's not entirely unusual for Starbucks locations to keep the doors open when service equipment goes down. The company has been known to offer discounts and other giveaways on such occasions.

Here's a look at how the outage played out on social media:

Starbucks has been looking for ways to win back upscale, urban customers recently – many of whom have been going to smaller shops like Blue Bottle Coffee. To that end, the chain announced this week it would start selling coffee from its premium roastery in more than 1,000 stores.

Reuters reported Thursday Starbucks earnings beat expectations for its fiscal second quarter, with sales up 7 percent in the Americas region. Shares were up 0.08% to $51.88 after hours Friday evening.

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: It's official: Michael Kors isn't cool anymore