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aristaea
2007-03-26 03:14 am UTC (link)

A) If your restaurant is paying $2.50/bag for tea, then you are both stupid and getting screwed by your vendor, and you could save a lot of money by having someone run to the grocery store and buy all the tea. Nice tea, even. Tea that costs $5 for a box of maybe 20 bags. That's expensive tea, and it's still only $0.25/bag.

B) I hate people who bring their own teabags, but I can understand it because I'm a tea snob, and I hate places that have crappy tea, too.

C) Fuck everyone, if I have a cup of Starbucks coffee and I come into your restaurant I am bringing the fucking coffee with me. Your coffee probably sucks and chances are it was sitting on the burner too long anyway, and you definitely cannot make me a decaf caramel soy chai latte. Hell, you can just barely do cappuccino right. You will pry my coffee from my cold, dead hands — and then I will haunt you until you give it back to me.

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perletwo
2007-03-26 03:36 am UTC (link)

yeah, I thought about the Starbucks point while reading the tea subthread above - for good tea, go to restaurants that cater to tea-drinking cultures like assorted Asian countries, India or the British Isles, because they make/drink tea all day every day.

But using the same logic, why can't most restaurants make even halfway decent coffee? I'm not talking about your half-caf mocha soy chai latte type thing either, just a regular cuppa joe. If that's what we drink all day every day, why's it so hard for most places?

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	gweniveeve 2007-03-26 03:45 am UTC (link)
	Because if it's not a breakfast- or cafe- type place, not very many people order coffee. So the same coffee sits in the pot for awhile, and you get bad coffee, or you have to wait for a bit while someone finds the durn decaf and brews it up. (I worked at a Mexican restaurant, and people very rarely ordered coffee). (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	perletwo 2007-03-26 03:58 am UTC (link)
	I can kinda see that. Some of the best coffee I've found has been in Waffle House-type 24 hour truck stop restaurants. The other best coffee I've had is at a local cafe whose side business is a coffee roaster (the mister cooks and the missus roasts java beans). (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

julesnoctambule
2007-03-26 12:15 pm UTC (link)

Some of the best plain coffee I've ever had was at a WaWa gas station in Virginia. They had several varieties of light and dark roasts, all freshly brewed on a regular schedule. I bought a cup of Sumatra at a gas station! And it was good!

I don't know how people can drink Charbucks' plain brewed coffee, personally; I've never bought anything from them but I've tasted other people's purchases and my god, that stuff is vile. No wonder the liquid candy bars sell so well -- all that flavouring syrup hides the taste of their charred, revolting coffee!

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	splorch 2007-03-26 01:37 pm UTC (link)
	Wawa coffee is truly the nectar of the gods. If I ever move away from the PA/NJ/DE area I am so hosed. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

julesnoctambule
2007-03-26 02:41 pm UTC (link)

I've seen them all over western and southern Virginia; I can't speak for the rest of the country, but you won't be that out of luck if you stick to the east coast.

The quality of their coffee was a pleasant surprise, I have to say. I'd heard from friends that it was good, but I thought they meant 'better than the brown water usually found in such places'-good, not 'damn, that's good coffee'-good.

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	splorch 2007-03-26 03:21 pm UTC (link)
	Yeah, I won't go so far as to say I've never had a bad cup of coffee there, but their turnover is so quick that it's always been fresh. I've bought their coffee to use at home and it's been just as good. (Wawavangelism. It's a way of life.) (Reply to this)(Parent)

	aristaea 2007-03-26 07:40 am UTC (link)
	I don't know, though, because a lot of people have coffee after dinner (often decaf), and even at really nice restaurants where coffee is an expected part of the meal it's usually not very good. (Reply to this)(Parent)

	rarirurero 2007-03-26 07:16 am UTC (link)
	C) A-fucking-men. (Reply to this)(Parent)

	funwithrage 2007-03-26 12:57 pm UTC (link)
	C) Depends on the place. Cafe/diner, yeah, I'm with you, but not so much if we're talking a sit-down, linen-napkin-and-fancy-silverware, Gilded Truffle sort of place. It's not so much a rip-off thing, even, as it's inappropriate to the atmosphere--much like, as someone above said, bringing a can of Coke. Tacky. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

aristaea
2007-03-26 02:23 pm UTC (link)

Pfft, if they want better atmosphere, they can bring me a coffee cup for my coffee.

There are also levels of fancy, because there are fancy restaurants with atmosphere, and then there are fancy restaurants with atmosphere that won't let you in unless you're wearing a sport jacket. I definitely wouldn't do it at the latter, but the former? Sure.

I think my rule is: if they'll let me in wearing jeans, then my personal assisstant, Mr. A. Robustus, should be allowed in, too.

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	funwithrage 2007-03-27 01:00 pm UTC (link)
	It's not a bad rule, actually--with the caveat that "let you in wearing jeans" actually means that people normally wear jeans there and not that most people have the sense to dress nicely, but they don't actually kick out that one asshole wearing a baseball cap. (Reply to this)(Parent)

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