Starbucks' Order-Ahead Mobile Payment Option Rolls Out in DFW

DFW has more than its fair share of great independently-owned coffee shops, but for the masses who pledge allegiance to Starbucks, the Seattle-based giant is now making it even easier to get your Frappuccino fix: The brand's Mobile Order & Pay feature via the Starbucks iPhone app is now available at select stores right here in DFW. (It'll be available for Android in the near future.)

Launched in the Pacific Northwest at the end of 2014, the new app feature lets customers place and pay for orders ahead of time and then proceed to their local store for pickup. Orders can be fully customized with options many customers may never have realized existed — for example, if for some bizarre reason you'd like to add three pumps of peach syrup to your tall iced coffee with coconut milk, that's totally an option.

Users have the option of using an existing Starbucks card for payment, or reloading a virtual one using a credit or debit card or even Paypal. The app will even give an estimated wait time (for example, it currently estimates two to five minutes to get an iced latte and a croissant at the Gaston location).

Futzing with a mobile app just to order a cappuccino may seem like more trouble than its worth for some, but for office heroes picking up very specific latte orders for 12 of their co-workers — or #millennials who prefer to minimize human contact — it's definitely convenient.