Dear Average Coffee House Customer,

Please remove all sunglasses and bluetooths, end all cell phone conversations, finish all texting and have your form of payment out and ready before you proceed to speak to the live human being behind the register who will be taking your drink order.

Please do not order something (i.e. cappucino, espresso macchiato) simply because you’ve heard it uttered on some nighttime sitcom in the 90’s. This does not make you look classy. It makes you look silly, and we pity you.

Please understand how a display case works.  Pastries and food are displayed with tags describing what kind of muffins are included in the case.  If there is a muffin in a tray directly above or beside another tray of pastries that looks pretty similar but is not tagged, its probably the same kind of pastry.  Please note that we cannot see where you are pointing when you gesture wildly and ask us which muffin it is.  Also please realize that when you ask us what pastry is on the left, it’s actually on our right and in a peak time we will not be able to make that conversion as quickly as you would like.  Also, when an empty tray is in a case it most likely means we don’t have that pastry anymore, don’t ask if we have some “in the back”. And especially don’t order it if you don’t see it. Pastries cannot be willed into being.

We appreciate that you seem to think we have control of the entire universe, especially with regards to our products.  But, see, we really don’t have that much control over vendors running out of your desired flavored syrup, the bakery delivery guy taking his sweet time to make deliveries, or any particularly item being sold out.  Please don’t make false accusations about it being the end of the world or of the holidays if we run out of peppermint. We really don’t appreciate your Christmas spirit. Did you know that baby Jesus can be celebrated without peppermint? So please understand that we will do our best to accommodate your every wish and desire, but we can only do what we can do.  Deal with it.

We love that you have really adopted the coffee house as your own personal living room and are proud of ourselves for creating an environment where you feel so incredibly comfortable.  However, do not rearrange our furniture especially if you’re not planning on putting it back the way you found it.  Would you do this at any other place of business?  Please respect your local baristas and their workload; we have not allotted time in our day for interior design.

Please respect the pick up counter as an area for picking up drinks.  It is not an area for you to whip out your laptop and check your facebook, it is not a luggage rack for you ungodly large backpack/purse/rolling suitcase, and it is not a filing cabinet to leave all manner of papers, pencils and notebooks.  Your fellow customers are attempting to pick up their drinks, because after all it is a pick up counter, and they are impeded by your misuse of the pick up counter.  Also, standing as close as humanly possible to the previously mentioned counter will not make your drink magically get prepared more quickly.  Please back it up so your fellow customers (who ordered before and whose drink will be ready before yours, as this is the natural order of things) can pick up their drinks.  

Please do not intently watch us prepare your drink.  This will also not make your drink magically get prepared more quickly.  You have paid us a great deal of money to do something you do not know how to do.  Do not assume the drink we are making is yours, because it’s probably not.  Do not assume that we will not use nonfat milk if that is what you have ordered, or that we will put whipped cream (by the way, don’t call it whip) on a drink you don’t want it on.  We do not come to your office and watch you type out whatever you type out over your shoulder, please do not come to our place of business and stare at us do our jobs.  It’s creepy and rude.

Please listen for your name with your drink. It will be announced when your drink is ready.  Please do not think you are the only customer in the last 12 hours that has ordered a vanilla latte.  When you purchase a drink and spend money on it please wait patiently to receive what you have paid for.  Also, we cannot babysit your cup for hours on end, and besides, your drink would be cold and subpar by then. When you return to pick up your drink an hour later, do not become irate that we have thrown it away and cannot recall your face because we have served dozens of customers since you abandoned your beverage.  

Lastly, please remember that baristas are people too.  We have good and bad days, happy and sad times, stressful and calm times just like you.  Please conduct yourself accordingly.

Love,

Your Local Baristas and Baristos