Constructing the Perfect Coffee Shop

I've sat in hundreds of coffee shops, and nobody can seem to get it right. My column:

I am writing this from the Philz Coffee on Lincoln Ave, in Lincoln Park, Chicago, IL. It’s nice, but it isn’t perfect.

I consider myself a master in coffee shops. It’s the 10,000 hour rule. 10,000 hours to become a master. I’m probably at like 800 hours, but definitely closer than the rest of you losers. Therefore, I am the expert. Let’s begin. I’ll document this in the order of the customer experience. From the second you walk in until you leave.

1. The register is not the entrance

Hey, coffee shops, let’s wake up and place our register far enough from the entrance so we don’t have a jumble of people squeezed into the pinch point, and worse, waiting outside. There is nothing more anxiety-inducing than playing the game of “do I hold this door open while I wait, is there enough room for me to actually fully enter the shop, or do I wait outside while people walk up one-by-one and ask ‘is this the line?’” Classic game.

2. The ordering process

I have several thoughts on this. This is low-hanging fruit, but we need to abolish the “tip screen” after you order. It is a psychological, behavioral experiment that is reminiscent of the Stanford Prison Experiment. Pretty much I either tax myself another $1 on my coffee or I get shamed by the staff for being a cheap POS (double entendre with Piece of S**t and the fact the device is called a POS System) (Too easy). I can’t imagine the baristas enjoy pretending like they don’t notice whether or not you’re tipping. Just get rid of it. I refuse to believe there is not a setting to just bypass that screen. With that said, I will do zero research to confirm or deny this hypothesis.

My other genius idea: during a rush time, there should be a rule that if you order just a straight hot or iced coffee, it is 20% off. We need to incentivize Samantha, the 23 year old that did Pilates this morning to sweat out her hangover, to NOT order a double frapp rainbow vanilla iced latte with cinnamon and half cream. We could pump out 15 iced coffees in the time Samantha essentially has the baristas bake her a chocolate cake.

Also one more thing. If it’s rush time, we can’t have a conversation with the baristas. It’s go time. It’s the equivalent of screaming while your team is shooting a free throw. Let them do their job. Nobody gives a crap that it’s really hot today and you’re thinking of going to the beach (you aren’t gonna go).

C. Designated waiting area - aka Warped Tour 2005

Listen — I understand that some coffee shops are constrained by the size of their store. With that said, if you are a small shop, you cannot have both a high volume of customers AND a high level of seating options. Because guess what happens, you get pinch points and bottle necks. Everyone is waiting for their orders within earshot of Maddy & Jason’s break up. It’s pretty much a mosh pit. There is so much confusion and tension that a legitimate riot could seemingly break out at any point. WE NEED SEPARATION. It’s like our founding fathers said. Separation of Church and State. Read a book. If you aren’t careful, you end up with a Denny’s Mosh Situation.

The solve for this is to not have seating options in the place you KNOW everyone will be standing to wait for their order. Hell, I’d rather hop behind the bar and pour my own coffee if it meant I didn’t have to get twerked on waiting for my iced coffee. This brings me to my next point.

IV. I should be able to pour my own coffee

This isn’t a bar. I’m not buying liquor. I don’t need a barista to serve me an ICED COFFEE. They literally take the cup and pour the coffee in. I can walk back there myself and pour myself the iced coffee. It’s seriously not a big deal. And hey, you don’t have to offer this to everyone, but when I spend as much time in the coffee shop as half the employees, I think I’ve earned a couple privileges. Plus, now I have taken a burden off the barista so they can worry about mixing the flour and chocolate for Samantha’s Oreo Flurry.

“oh but Jack people are going to go back up and pour themselves unlimited coffee” WRONG. Dumb Statement. That’s why you keep it behind the bar. You can’t just dilly dally up there.

A. Every seat should have a back

Ok, let’s recap the perfect coffee shop experience so far. I walked into the coffee shop, had enough space to breathe between the entrance and register, didn’t have to tax myself $1, went behind the bar to pour my iced coffee, circumvented a potential bottleneck barfight, and am now headed to take a seat.

As if our spinal cords weren’t already destroyed enough from sitting in front of a computer scrunched over for 8 hours a day, the coffee shop community has this fascination with barstool-like objects that don’t have backs. It’s a freaking joke. Is it just cheaper? It’s a complete disaster. Now that I think about it, is it on purpose to get people to not stay long?

8. Add more outlets. Like add 400 more outlets

Oh My Goodness. It’s so hard to believe this has to be said. We live in a society where every single person is chronically online and averages more time on their phone than they do sleep. We need to charge our devices. If the amount of outlets in a coffee shop were perfectly aligned to demand, there would just be walls of outlets. Similar to a megabed in a room. All bed, no floor. That’s what the walls would be. AND YET, some coffee shops DO NOT have outlets. It’s disgusting.

9. Volume level - this isn’t a John Summit concert

Do coffee shops think people go there to listen to the music? That’s what you would think if you walked into some of these quasi-Perry’s-Stage-at-Lollapalooza joints.

The way I see it, you have two choices as a coffee shop: play smooth Jazz music, or Jack Johnson greatest hits. That’s it. And either way, turn the volume down to a level where JJ is whispering. Higher volume music means people legit have to scream at each other to talk, which heightens the potential for that riot to erupt at the waiting station.

10. Wifi - just figure it out

How is it that we can be in a stadium with 25,000 other people and have perfectly fine wifi, but my coffee shop that has, at maximum, 12 people on the wifi still can’t provide high-speed internet. If it’s a money problem, then don’t open a coffee shop. I’m sorry, but that’s just the price of doing business. Hell, if my tips were going towards high speed internet, flip that iPad around!! I would gladly contribute.

So, that wraps up just a few observations I have made over the years. I could legit go on for days, but that is for another blog. This was very therapeutic for me.

- Jack