customer service
i’m not going to name the place, because I like it. but memo to coffee shop owners, part I: give your patron a free remake when that patron ruins her coffee by accidentally pouring too much something in it, especially when that something is in an unlabeled shaker jar with huge holes on top. sure, it’s the dumb patron’s fault (i.e. my bad). but that’s not the point. there are lots of coffee shops to hit in this town. you win repeats by being generous.
memo II: when your patron fills up their 10-drinks-1-free card when buying three drinks, don’t use the one free on the cheapest order, use it on the most expensive or at least the one in the middle. for instance, i buy a large mocha, large cap and a small cup of drip. my drink card is full so i get a free one. you give me the small drip for free. that’s not cool. if you don’t want to have the 10 drink card then don’t have it, but if you’re gonna have it you better be generous with it.
the newest of the new
The Cup is now open in Allison’s old space on the north side of Pearl between 16th and 15th (just shy of the mall). Big, big improvement. Interior is redone in fresher way, plants and art choices kind of liven the place up a bit. Food selections are broader and the coffee served is my fave — Conscious Coffees out of Breckenridge. Allison’s coffee was pretty good but CC is the best around. Prices are about the same (read: high). The back room isn’t open yet but promises to be soon and I’m guessing it’s going to be seriously upgraded from Allison’s thrift-store-shopping-spree look.
The downside of Cup is the decrease in seating options and the seating layout. There are a couple of tall tables that would comfortably fit one worker bee but most tables in the shop are four-top. Meaning you feel like an asshole taking up the whole damn thing for two hours with your little laptop. Wouldn’t be so much of an issue if the place was dead but so far it’s been consistently busy any time I’ve been in. (It did quiet down later in the afternoon today, though.) There’s a long high table that would function as a decent work space but 1- no plugs and 2- it’s a high-traffic area when the garage door is open. The overall is that it just doesn’t feel like a workspace coffee haus in the way that the Goat or Vic’s do. Still, ambiance is a hell of a lot better than either of those two (Goat makes me feel like I’m in a vampire-themed rave that does coffee shop by day and brings out the poppers and meth at night) even if the working conditions aren’t ideal.
The two newest shops in town, The Cup and Saxy’s, are stepping it up in the coffee quality and ambiance departments and that’s a good thing. And Cup has a bit of an edge: nothing on the coffee menu over $4 except for a large mocha.
i’ve heard some rumors…
…but haven’t been in yet. Sources say that The Cup, the new joint that is taking over Allison’s old space, has awesome coffee. My beta comes from a visiting out-of-towner who drinks a crapload of coffee everyday and owns her own $2000 espresso machine to feed her habit. She came back from a visit to Cup raving about how good the coffee is.
[Pearl between 15th and 16th]
