You Want Ice? No Espresso For You!

Now imagine back to when you first saw the Seinfeld episode featuring "The Soup Nazi" and you were probably thinking a) this is really (naughty word deleted) funny and b) there is no way that this could ever happen in real life.

Ah...but that's where you're wrong. As Kramer would say, "It can. It has. And I'm loving every minute of it!"

I direct your attention to the paper of record here in Washington, DC: The Washington Post, and their fine bit of Metro Section reporting on a guy who couldn't get ice with his espresso. It seems that the "barista" (a term I still shutter when saying because it's such a pretentious way to say "coffee drink pourer") would not give this gentleman his triple espresso over ice and only begrudgingly gave him a triple espresso and a separate cup of ice.

A few things to point out here:
1) If you're ordering a triple espresso you are a bit off balance to begin with and should not be told "no" to anything for fear of you shooting up a place
2) If you want the caffeine boost you probably shouldn't cut it with ice/water
3) In a piss-poor economy...you never tell a customer "no"....if he wants his coffee over ice over a pile of leftover coffee grounds, you can advise him not to, but if he insists then you do it!

Fast forward to later that day. If you were a sane and rational person (you wouldn't be drinking a triple espresso!) you might retell this story to a friend and laugh it off as really bad service. But the customer (much like yours truly) decided to go home and blog about the incident. I'm not sure of his previous traffic but something caught the eye of the blogisphere and his site was bombarded with visits and comments. This in turn lead to the owner of the coffee shop (who by the way had to close a previous incarnation in DC because he owed the city $400k in collected sales tax revenue) to blog back saying that the shop had "rules" that could not be broken or questioned.

What a freakin idiot!

Note to owner of Murky Coffee, Nicholas Cho: Hey dumbass!!!! The customer is always right. Even when he's a jerk (nobody likes a jerk) and orders a triple shot...he's still right. I didn't realize that you were loosing so much money on the ice or that your espresso is so good that it can't be enjoyed any other way that you don't deem permissible. If you had just let this guy blog and not said anything there would be no story and no bad press for your store. But since you couldn't handle that...No Soup For You!