its usually instituted in order to prevent people from making a ‘ghetto latte’.

you see people do this on occasion:

price of latte: 3.00
price of espresso: 1.50

take espresso, pour over ice, dump in a cup or two of milk thats provided for people to add a few tablespoons at a time to their drip coffee. save 1.50 at the expense of the coffee shop.

CUSTOMER SERVICE, DO YOU KNOW IT?!><#@

That said, I’ve never been treated poorly by a barista. They seem to truly relish it when a customer is courteous and will ask questions. It gives them a chance to suggest drinks and so on, which is fun.

If a barista told me I couldn’t have my drink some such way, I might ask why instead of blankly farting-out the phrase “buh dat how I lub muh cawffee!”

Let the guy vent why you can’t have ice with your espresso. Agree that his reason makes sense, then counter that you’re not trying to achieve the same effect the barista is trying to preserve. Be disarming. Be friendly. Nine times out of ten, logic will set in and the barista will think, “well, it IS just coffee.”

If he remains adamant, then you can either leave or order something similar to tide you over. Ask the barista what he suggests to achieve the effect you were going for.

And if all else fails, grab the nancy bastard around his pencil-thin neck, place the other hand on the back of his head, and slam his face into the counter until his head is mushy. Tell any surviving baristas to make the damned drink before things get ugly.

The Other Michael @45:

“The customer is always right” brings us by a commodius vicus of recirculation back to WalMart, Starbucks and environs.

Well, bless my contransmagnificandjewbangtantiality. What sounds does the thunder make in that continuum?

Avram @85: And is it related to being able to squirt milk out of your eyes?

Anonymous@92, quoting Mr. Murky Coffee:

We have some policies at murky coffee. No sleeping in the shop. If you’re asleep, you’ll be tapped on the shoulder and asked not to sleep in the shop. We’ve had to ban a customer because of his chronic napping.

These guys definitely aren’t playing to the narcoleptics.

Anonymous @94, if you think the McDonald’s lawsuit was simply about the coffee being too hot, you’ve gotten hold of one of the disinformation versions of it. There are good reasons they lost that case.

That means that someone used something in a novel, hitherto unfashionable way, and it caught on. They knew what they wanted, and they did it that way.

It’s the reason you enjoy foreign cultures, and the reason we’re not all a bunch of automatons.

Snobbery is utterly pointless, and if every restaurant were to pour disdain on a customer out of keeping with their own tastes, then there would be precious few anywhere.

-Flameboy

–

I’m signing this note with my name and address. I’m not using any cuss words or insults or threats of physical violence.

You can see I live in Silver Spring, MD. That’s DC area, and I make it in to Arlington from time to time. Potentially I’m a customer of yours, though I don’t think I’ve ever been in your shop.

You had a chance to respond to Jeff Simmermon, and a wide audience to see your response, and you chose to do it an obnoxious way that only made you and your shop look worse. You are contemptuous of your customers, you are a pettifogger, and you use racist language. The term “ghetto latte” is inherently racist.

A month from now, if I happen to walk or drive past Murky Coffee, I won’t remember why I don’t like Murky Coffee. I’ll just remember that there’s something about the shop that left a really bad taste in my mouth, and I won’t go in.

Imagine, a worker taking pride in one’s creation. THE FIEND.

The people who say they are real coffee lovers and then go on to compare this guy’s store with Starbucks and think Starbucks is all that with coffee.

Sorry, goto Italy. Drink an espresso or cappuccino. When you Starbucks-lovers have come down off the ceiling because you’ve never tasted caffeine in your lives, then tell me Starbucks is good coffee.

FFS. Starbucks is watered down crap. I’d prefer to goto somewhere independent, rude or not, rather than slave-labour low-wage anonymous and crap coffee chain.

Oh and Americans – sort out your coffee strength. Weak or what? Spent a whole 7 days in San Fran last time looking for decent coffee (the italian places were laughably weak) until I found a small Algerian place. As you say – geez.

A lot of people call it Charbucks… Something that Dunkin’ and Starbucks have in common is that they both sell awful coffee. However Starbucks also sometimes sells good coffee depending on what they’re brewing that day. Some of their roasts taste like an ash-tray and some of them don’t. Usually people who bitch about how burnt the coffee is at Starbucks are really expressing their displeasure with the general culture of the place. The rest of them just don’t know what they’re ordering.

Incidentally, I find the new “Pike’s Place roast” that they have every day at Starbucks lately to be revolting.

Can anyone point me toward an explanation of what’s actually going on, chemically, with the coffee, or is this just one of those magical “it’s true because ‘experts’ say so” things, like homeopathy and tiger-repelling rocks?

Not everyone has the same taste, and just because you consider yours to be more “refined” doesn’t make it so.

If it’s no extra work for the person behind the counter, and isn’t breaching any OH&S laws, what’s the issue?

Just because you work in a premier indy coffee shop doesn’t mean you get to tell people how they like their coffee. You’re labouring under some High Fidelity-esque illusions people.

If you work in a SHOP, and you SELL things to people, you’re in retail. Not art. Not public service… retail. Kinda like the kids who work at K-mart. Get over yourself.

Act like a jackass and I might well respond in kind, depends on the day I’m having. I might be nice, I might fire it right back in your face. The real rule of thumb is, don’t be a jackass. The owner? Hey, he’s allowed to be an asshole and damage his business. It is HIS bottom line and if he wants to “respectfully” threaten to “punch people in the dick”… well, he should probably learn the definition of respectfully.

Why? Because sometimes the customer is an idiot. Icing an espresso seems like an idea with no possible good outcome to me. And there’s something to be said for doing things properly. Margaritas don’t come in any other flavours but “margarita” Martinis have 2 possible recipes- one with vodka and the other with gin. period. Hefeweizen should NEVER be served with an orange of lemon slice. Spaghetti doesn’t involve ketchup, and so forth.

If they’re known for having the top stuff, then the opinion of someone like this won’t chase away their normal clientel.

anything less is ‘not cool’.

The profit margin on coffee is small. I’d sell it to you by the gallon if you wanted to pay for it. I’d include an IV line too.

Considering that the customer has had this drink many times before, I think he KNOWS what it’s going to taste like, more or less. The barista and other snobs will consider it ruined, but not the man who ordered it. Everyone has their inane laws about the “proper way to cook a steak” or “the only way to make real BBQ” but these rules are stupid; when I first saw pad thai I thought “that’s WRONG, you can’t put crushed peanuts on top of pasta!!” Of course now I love pad thai.

It. Gets. Colder.

How many have been in 7th grade science class, raise your hand. *notices that Nick, owner of murky coffee, is not raising his hand*

A large (Venti) coffee at the closest Starbucks to my house is $1.79. A large coffee at Dunkin’ Donuts across the street is $2.39.

Being smart in business is getting somebody to buy expensive coffee… But it takes Genius(tm) to get somebody to pay even more while convincing them they’re paying less.

Sometimes the customer is just wrong.

No matter who you are, no matter what a shop did to you (in this case, put up with a difficult customer) there is NEVER an appropriate time to scrawl “Fuck you and your precious coffee policy” on a crumpled bill and lob it at the staff.

That this person has gotten so much attention for being rude is not so much “funny” as distasteful. I mean, I know this is the internet… but still.