Dear The Coffee Bean

Dear The Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf:

First off, I want you to understand... I've never liked you. So you were already fighting an uphill battle.

I'm not one of those coffee snobs who orders their lattes at a certain temperature or categorically refuses to set foot in any establishment that is not their preferred purveyor. But after today, I'm getting there.

The Coffee Bean, I don't like your coffee. I don't like your baked goods - they are greasy and even fattier than they need to be. I don't like your tiny little BB ice cubes which immediately melt and dilute my iced coffee. I don't like your computer-based ordering system which requires a barista to ask me my name even if I am the only person in the store. I don't even like my colleague who goes out of her way across the hall to fill her mug every morning with the Coffee Bean coffee they brew their rather than the Starbucks variety at our own coffee station. And I CERTAINLY don't like getting screwed, which I discovered today, I am whenever I visit you.

The Coffee Bean, I was forced to visit your La Cienega and Third location today against my better judgmenent, as the line up the street at Joan's was out the door. After delivering my order, I was asked if my iced coffee was "for here or to go," a question not typically asked at chain coffee shops. As I was meeting someone there, I gladly said "for here." Ever the environmentalist, always looking for ways in which I can save the planet (as long as they don't force me to do anything I wasn't going to do anyway), I hoped that by saying this I was sacrificing yet another difficult-to-recycle plastic cup, and was instead opting for a glass. Not only was this NOT the case, but it turns out, my good intentions actually cost me more. When I received my coffee in a plastic cup, presumably the exact same cup I would've received had I said "to go," the conversation went like this:

"This is a plastic cup. Why did you ask me if I was getting this to go?"

"We charge you sales tax if you stay here."

W-w-w-w-what? The Coffee Bean, in what universe does this make sense? The coffee is prepared the same, the materials used are the same, and there is no table service of any kind. Why should it matter if the customer stays or leaves? Not only that, but that policy actually traps people with good intentions of at least small-time environmental sustainability into getting, instead, big-time screwed. (Granted, only screwed to the tune of thrity cents or so, but we're talking principle here.) After pulling a cartoon character-worthy double-take, I asked:

"From on what logically lofty highs this inane policy had been trumpeted?"

"It's just our policy, sir," was the reply.

Don't try to mollify me with your misappropriated respect, The Coffee Bean! I won't for a second have it. "That seems a little capricious," I said to the heavily-made up barista. "They don't do that at Starbucks."

She blinked at me, saying nothing. This is increasingly the response I get when talking to anyone in the service industry. Or, come to think of it, most people in general.

The Coffee Bean, there may be a perfectly plausible reason behind this policy, or at the very least, a reason; but whatever it is, I think it's a load of shit. Any policy that out-of-step with your competitors, any policy that unwittingly causes people to spend more money than they need to, is inherently duplicitous, and therefore, morally rank. You have unwittingly given me even greater cause to avoid your dinky ice cubes, your fat-ass baked goods, and dumpy waitstaff. (Not to mention even greater reason to impugn my hall-crossing co-worker). From now on, I'll stick to Starbucks, and even if they automatically charge me to-go prices without checking, at least they have the decency to not give me the option of unwittingly choosing my own overpriced adventure, doing their best to incubate against the harsh realties of our increasingly illogical age, lessening my increasingly unrewarded quixotic stabs at making sense of it.

Best regards,
Dear Crabby