Coffee Etiquette (Page 2)

If it was really about the value of a dollar, wouldn't it be better to make your own coffee at work?

I think you secretly like the amusement of making your co-workers uncomfortable

Is that supposed to be secret? Damn. I am openly amused by my co-workers discomfort. No wonder they don't want to go to lunch with me.

Banned for life?!  That would then make 2 libraries, 1 gym, 1 community center, 3 grocery stores, 1 women's health clinic and every bedroom that has coats piled on the bed at my friends' houses when they throw parties.  Add to that list a coffee house?

... I could live with that. 

Seriously - This was probably the 4th or 5th time I've done this in three months.  First time I was "caught".  I usually make coffee at home and bring it in.  So it's not like it's an everyday occurrence.  That doesn't make it any more forgiving, just that I'm not a "serial Starbucks vanilla thief".

Are any of those in the Lake Norman area? We might be banned from some of the same places!

Wow.  And I once felt sneaky swiping two packets of salt from a gas station convenience store.

While suffering post-exercise hyponatremia.

In 100+ degree weather.

While buying other products.  (It's just that they were products that didn't normally take salt.)

So yeah, beyond tacky.  Wow.

It was vanilla, not milk. You've got refrigeration, loss due to expiration... it's a completely different cost model. Plus, you have to factor in his coworker who drinks coffee black. If the cost of condiments are included in the price of the coffee then Doug is just using the condiments that his coworker paid for but didn't use.

Come to think of it, imagine how many more black coffee drinkers are paying for condiments they don't use. These coffee houses are making a huge profit off that market segment. A few shakes of vanilla for Doug doesn't even come close to leveling that playing field. Doug is the 99%!!!!!

Occupy Starbucks condiment station!

'mrbrad' has it right here.  We're talking about the little shaker of powdered vanilla at the condiment bar next to the sugars and milk.  A couple of shakes of vanilla.  I've done it 4 or 5 times so I guilty of stealing about a tablespoon worth of vanilla.

I thought the discussion would go more along the lines of, "Using Starbucks vanilla powder in a McDonalds coffee?!"  Rather than, "Stop!  Thief!  He's using condiments but he's not a ptron here!  Shoot him!  Shoot him before he gets away!"

Whatever your original question is it will never be the topic of a thread.

Yeah, but you're Canadian!  And everyone knows that Canadians are polite.

How do you get 100 Canadians out of a swimming pool?  Say "would you all please exit the swimming pool".

Whatever your original question is it will never be the topic of a thread.

I take the side of the restaurant.  (Disclaimer: My wife's family runs fast food restaurants.)  If you want cheaper coffee, you get the condiments that the cheaper seller provides.  There are a lot of people that think condiments are free and that they should be able to take as many as they want. The condiments are not free to the owner.  My father-in-law once told me that, if you buy a large order of fries from him, he makes about $0.05.  If you take a ketchup pack, he makes $.02.  If you take 2 ketchup packs, he loses money.   Margins are tight.  Starbucks closed a bunch of stores in 2010-2011.

What should your friends do? If I were them, I would try to embarass you into better behavior on the first occurrence, as they did.  If you did it again, I would go to the counter and pay a $1 for your syrup.  I would not be with you if there were a third opportunity.

TW

You might want to check their 2011 financial release

I have my own copy.  Thanks.

To the post above, you may see it as being a "dbag" but my brother, nor I, clearly don't.  As I said, it's a much smaller chain, and profits are razor thin.  Giving our free supplies to people who are too cheap to shop at your store is just bad business.  The more supplies the shop runs through, the smaller the shop's profits, and the smaller his bonus at the end of the day.  To use the bike shop analogy, it would be like a customer consistently buying tubes at the cheaper shop next door, then driving to your shop and asking to you install it for him for free. 

Further, I don't see any difference just because they are Starbucks.  I don't go into best buy and take a CD because it's "just a CD" and they'll never miss it because the TV's they sell are more expensive.  The coffee shop has supplies for customers, you are not a customer, and you took something that didn't belong to you. 

You and Dave are thinking in very different sectors: Dave is willing to bleed pennies, maybe even a few dollars, because his customers and their friends will spend hundreds, sometimes thousands, at a shop they like and trust. This is Successful LBS 101 and I gratefully spend hundreds at the 2 shops that don't pinch my pennies.

Your brother is pinching pennies because his customers barely spend dollars, which I understand. I can tell you, though, that it only takes one crappy experience (poor drive-through service, stale bread, veggie stems in my sammich, etc) to keep me away from a fast-food joint FOREVER. So, if you give me the stink-eye for taking a napkin while hanging out w/my friend who is a customer, you have still lost the napkin, as well as a customer for life. I'm sure you have to draw the line somewhere, but sifting through customers vs non-customers is, in my view, a great way to limit your customer base, which cannot be good for any business, especially fast food.

BTW, I'm not hip enough to ever aspire to the title of "Barista", but if I was one and saw BFD take the vanilla, I would comp him a cup of drip and point out the relatively reasonable cost on the menu. It's not a bad price for a good cup, and then he can take all the sissy-boy condiments he wants w/out losing any coffee cred

Nah. If you aren't a customer- you aren't entitled.  The condiments, and even the ambience of the coffeeshop is for paying customers.

When I was a little kid out in a very small town in Kansas, "Old Man Hunter" at Hunter's Drug ran an actual soda fountain. You could go in and sit down and ask for a vanilla cherry coke and he'd mix you one by hand. I can still hear him clinking the metal spoon against the sides of the glass as he mixed it up.  I'd developed a taste for a vanilla coke with just a hint of cherry. There was nothing pretentious at all about it. It was cool to have a choice and experiment with flavors to find what made you happy.

One thing I'd never have the nerve to do to Old Man Hunter was walk in to the drug store with my own coke and ask for a splash of vanilla.

 I feel that way about Starbucks. It's nice to have choices. I spent years in Seattle coffee shops (Starbucks, Seattle's Best, Pete's, Tully's, UW coffee shops)  and I have to say, why would anyone ON EARTH want to drink the machined industrial tasting drivel that comes out of Duncan Donuts or McD's?  I moved to Florida a couple of years ago and almost died when I discovered "these people" thought Duncan Donuts coffee was "good." I tried to order a chai tea in a DD, a little light on the chai, and the DD worker rolled her eyes at me and informed me the "tea comes out of machine and you can't change it." Bleah! I will not be a slave to your machine!