What could a customer and a coffee shop be scuffling over that would lead the owner to publicly announce that if the customer comes back in, he’ll “punch him in the dick?” And the customer saying the only way he’ll come back in is with “matches and a can of kerosene?” The right to pour espresso over ice, obviously. The blogstorm began as follows…
I just ordered my usual summertime pick-me-up: a triple shot of espresso dumped over ice. And the guy at the counter looked me in the eye with a straight face and said “I’m sorry, we can’t serve iced espresso here. It’s against our policy.”
The whole world turned brown and chunky for a second. Flecks of corn floated past my pupils, and it took me a second to blink it all away.
“Okay,” I said, “I’ll have a triple espresso and a cup of ice, please.” He rolled his eyes and rang it up, took my money, gave me change. I stood there and waited. Then the barista called me over to the bar. I reached for it, and he leaned over and locked his eyes with mine, saying “Hey man. What you’re about to do … that’s really, really Not Okay.”
Blah blah blah, then Jeff ordered a second cup of coffee and left a dollar tip in the tip jar scrawled with the phrase, “Fuck you and your precious coffee policy.”
The story got picked up on BoingBoing and Metafilter, with commenters chiming in.
The net blowup prompted the store owner to blog the following:
Okay, we don’t do espresso over ice. Why? Number one, because we don’t do it. Number two, because we don’t do it. Mostly for quality reasons. Also, because more than half the time, it’s abused (Google “ghetto latte”).
To Mr. Simmermon, you overplayed your hand with your vulgar tip-schtick. While I certainly won’t bemoan you your right to free-speech, I have to respond to you in your own dialect: Fuck you, Jeff Simmermon. Considering your public threat of arson, you’ll understand when I say that if you ever show your face at my shop, I’ll punch you in your dick.
Respectfully,
Nick
Owner, murky coffee
Nick also posted some answers to the most frequently asked questions people were leaving on the blog:
We’ve got quite a few comments in the moderation-queue, and in a departure from normal procedures, I won’t be approving and posting them all. Why? If you want to spew garbage on the internet, get your own blog.
I will, however, respond here to a few legitimate questions that some folks asked.
Q. What’s wrong with “espresso over ice?”
Answer: Espresso is a fairly volatile thing, and when it hits ice, it seems to go through a chemical change that we can’t fully explain (and I haven’t seen a good explanation within our industry quite yet). It does appear to have something to do with ascorbic acid, but when we make our iced americanos (espresso + water + ice), we pour the shots into room-temperature water before adding the ice. Believe it or not, it does make a difference. Pouring espresso over ice creates unpleasantly acrid flavors.Somewhat similarly, when we make our iced coffee, we go through the trouble of brewing it double-strength directly onto ice. If you brew coffee normally and then pour the hot coffee over ice, it results in unpleasant flavors. Making iced-coffee the way that we do seems to preserve a lot of the unique flavors from the coffees we’re brewing (unlike the popular “Toddy” method of cold-brewing for iced coffee), and yields a great drink overall. Again, not entirely sure why the different technique yields such different results, but it does. If we put the coffee through two slits, it’d probably act all confusingly then too.
The second and more mundane reason has to do with the infamous “ghetto latte.” More than half of the customers who we gave “iced espresso” to (back before our now infamous policy) would take that cup to the condiment bar and pour 8-14 ounces of milk out of the dairy pitcher, effectively taking advantage of a perceived loophole in the “system.” Just as buying a cup of coffee doesn’t entitle you to take a pound’s worth of sugar packets home with you to put into your jar at home, this “ghetto latte” practice was pretty disheartening and distracting to the baristas. Call it our “infield fly rule,” but “no espresso over ice” became our policy in 2006.
Q. Why do you allow “iced americanos,” but not iced espresso?
Answer: See answer above.Q. But why would David, the barista in question, “Hey, what you’re about to do-that’s really, really not okay?”
Because we have our policy, and David was trying to support it, even though the other barista who rang this customer up gave in and gave him “a double espresso and a cup of ice,” which, to be frank, the baristas aren’t supposed to do.Q. Why did you threaten the guy with violence? That’s not cool!
Maybe you’re right. But if someone posts on the internet “the only way I’m ever coming back to Murky Coffee in Arlington is if I’m carrying matches and a can of kerosene” as this dude did, I will, without remorse, post publicly that I will defend our property, even with violence. Yeah, what I wrote was ridiculous. A ridiculous response to a ridiculous statement… at least I hope so. If not, I hope his dick is at least big enough to punch.Q. The customer is always right
Yeah, that’s true. Actually, nevermind. It’s bullshit.Every customer is a welcome guest. But even welcome guests can overstep their bounds, and demanding that we give you something that we say that we can’t or won’t is overstepping your bounds for sure. I can pretty much guarantee that we spend more time and energy on making our espresso as great as can be, than anyone else in the DC area. That said, not everyone’s gonna love it. Such is life. We have our standards. You’re more than welcome to partake in it, and you’re completely free not to. We’ll keep doing our best (and that includes giving good customer service).
This all leads to a whole thing about consumerism that I’ve been ranting about for years, but this is neither the time nor place for that.
I will add that it is our internal policy that I support my employees, even when they make mistakes. In this case, David wasn’t perfect, but he tried to do the right thing. For the Simmermon-dude to write that crap on that dollar bill waived his rights to any civility. Dish it out, then take it. Mr. Simmermon is a big boy. He doesn’t need the blogosphere coming to his defense.
Q. Get over it. It’s just coffee.
You’re absolutely right. Everyone go home and call your mother and tell her you love her. Afterwards, understand that it is “just coffee” after all. However, coffee is our job. That’s all. No more, no less.Thanks for all the comments and emails (for the record, about 40% supportive, 20% critical, and about 40% ignorant and ridiculous… but that’s the nature of the sandbox that we blog in, no?).
-Nick Cho, owner
Unless the shop makes the customers sign an EULA, they can’t control what people decide to do with their products after they’re sold. After that, you just have 3 dicks in a dick-measuring contest. Congrats, you’re all winners.
(Photo: Guy Noir)
(Thanks to Jason and Ben!)
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@SAGoon987: So you think it’s the vendor’s place to tell you what you want to eat? Contrary to the coffee example where they think they’re getting defrauded and deprived of a profit, the prohibition on extra meat toppings doesn’t really serve any rational business purpose. Are you somehow trying to say that if I want pepperoni, meatballs and sausage on a pizza somehow I’m ruining it? Don’t get me wrong, it’s clogging my arteries, but that’s my right as an American (or at least it was until my girlfriend decided I had to eat healthier). Shopkeepers and people in service industries who think that they should be able to dictate the personal tastes of customers are the real assholes here.
Any place that tells a customer that they are going to get cock-knocked gets my business immediately. I’m sick of this “customer is always right” garbage. Sometimes the customer is an idiot and deserves a good dick punchin’.
@mbouchard: Or only offer those little tiny creamer packets instead of pitchers of real milk.
@LittleEnosBurdette: That would be cute if anyone in the ghetto could tell you what a barista was.
I find it odd that Mr Cho will use “damn” in his advertising, but he won’t say “fuck” in a blog post, opting instead for “f*@k”. Who does he think he is, Rhett Butler?
And the ghetto latte at Starbucks is 50% cheaper than an iced latte and stronger? They deserve to have cheapskates game the system with that kind of an arbitrage.
@MercuryPDX: When I ask for a “large iced coffee with a shot of espresso”, don’t repeat in a condescending tone “Don’t you mean ‘A Cold Shot in the Dark’?”.
Recent experience at Starbucks:
“I’d like a small cappuccino—”
“A tall or a short?”
“Ummm… which one is a normal small?”
“Probably the Tall. “
“OK, I guess I’ll have that.”
Another recent experience:
“I’d like a double small hazelnut cappuccino.”
“How about I put just a hint of vanilla in there?”
“Sure.”
“Great. You are about to have the best cappuccino you have ever had.”
[Stunned silence. I really wanted to say "Do you really have no idea how preposterous and impossible that statement is?"]
@GizmoBub: As an American, he has the choice of what to serve. If you don’t like it, don’t go there. Also, yes, that toppings combination is dumb.
I have to side with the coffee shop on this one. If people are abusing the “ghetto latte” thing then I can understand why the owner would have a problem with it. Each “ghetto latte” ends up costing him money and there’s no way to control it unless you put the milk pitchers behind the counter which will inevitably annoy legitimate customers.
I don’t think it’s cool taking advantage of independent businesses.
@coan_net:
I understand what you are saying, but on the same hand, you can’t go to an Indian restaurant and tell them you want Greek food because you don’t like the test of Indian food…
When I was YOUNGER and less worldly, I went out to dinner with my Pastor, (ex gourmet chef) and his family, I ordered a steak, it came in slices, and I asked if I could have some cheese for it, a I was used to steak and cheese subs. Needless to say, it was an insult to the chef, and it did take some explaining before I understood it.
For those people complaining about how the coffee won’t taste different because of the temp of the pour, as the owner says, you are WRONG, there are many items in the real world that are changed differently due to how the heat or cooling was applied, think of tempering a blade, think of a glass blower, think of cement drying, just some examples… I would disagree about the ascorbic acid though. I would think more that when the surface of the ice melted, it infused with the poured liquid in such a way to cause it to go slightly sour. Maybe a sugar crystal that normally balances the sour is destroyed…
@Comms: “IF people are abusing the ghetto latte thing”
That’s a big IF. That’s no reason to blindly side with the coffee shop owner on this one. There’s far, far more going on in this story than just the POSSIBILITY of this guy using some milk.
“I’m a barrista!”
No, you’re a cashier at a coffee shop.
Jeff stinks. Long live Nick!
And to those who question punching dicks, most states allow for occupants of buildings to use lethal force to defend against arsonists. So a punch in the dick would be well below the legal threshold.
I approve of this entire story. Baristas and coffee shop owners should be rude and profane, and over-caffeinated customers should be unable to handle small changes in their coffee-centric universe. It is the natural order of things.
Man, what an asshole. Its coffee! If some douche bag customer wants to fuck up their own coffee that they are paying for, let them.
This really isn’t about coffee or ghetto latte, Its the fact that after he was told a policy that the store has (not the barista so why you would argue with him i have no idea) he was a dick with his tip and then threatened arson. If anyone threatened arson to my establishment I would call the police or threaten him with violence as well. I would protect my investment and my staff from some lunatic who might just be crazy enough to burn down my business one day, you never know.
The customer was a total DICK, because it is the owners private business he can deny a certain drink to him for any reason he chooses, the customer needs to comply with the policy or he can go to another coffee shop. Instead the customer tried to be slick and get around it, I deal with plenty of these people every day who think they are slick, It usually ends in them being barred from the establishment with no refund or anything.
The owner sounds incredibly graceless and unpleasant.
It’s too bad, because it actually is true that there is no better cup of coffee in the entire DC area..
@Veeber: are you saying he would be using kerosene as a condiment in his next iced espresso?
@BarryT: Racist against whom? Italians (the word is Italian)? Jews (original Ghetto dwellers)? Ghetto might be an offensive way to say “poor man’s”, but you seem to be assuming that only people of a particular place are poor.
@twophrasebark: Proving once again that the federal government is too big: throwing so much money around that people there have time to waste in pissing contests over how coffee is prepared.
@dragonvpm: It was all so much simpler on the internet when the flame wars were all about computers, operating systems, game consoles and anime.
@bwcbwc: True, less people felt obligated to have an opinion on all those things. Now, everyone has an opinion on being a consumer or running a business.
@SAGoon987: He certainly does have the choice to serve or not serve. Granted, as I said before, the guy is in the service industry so it seems rather stupid to constrain your customers in what they can get. Rest assured, I’d get loud and obnoxious if not knowing his (IMHO “retarded and pretentious”) policy was denied an order for a pizza. The way you describe it, you’d think that he’s a making life or death decisions. He’s a pizza guy for crying out loud! The very notion of opening up a store where you can choose what you want is that the customer can have what he or she wants so long as he or she is willing to pay for it. If I walk into a NY pizzaria and ask for a slice with pinapple, bacon, pesto chicken, meatball and olives they don’t get all offended and upset like your silly pizza guy. They make the slice, add up the topings and charge me for it. But to make a slight change in a classic Airplane line, “Chump don’t want the biz, chump don’t get the biz.”
I would love to see how all the “it’s his business he can run it how he likes” would froth all over themselves if this was something that happened at Starbucks or Wal-Mart. It’s amazing how quickly people drop their pro-consumer positions when it’s a small business with arbitrary and obnoxious rules. Personally I think it’s all the worse when small businesses adopt these silly behaviors because they can’t defend them with the “corporate makes one-size-fits-all rules” excuse.
@DwightIsMyCopilot:
Ha ha ha…wiener.
Cho sounds like Korean and he wants to be the Momofuku of coffee. I can understand a Thomas Keller of French Laundry being aghast if someone were to pour ketchup on one of his dishes, b/c dang if he does not know food. Just shut up and listen to what he says and enjoy the ride. However you’re paying $100-$200 to be led through that experience. This is a freakin $3 cup of coffee. It’s the ford of the food/drink world. Sorry, dude give the customer what he wants and be glad he didn’t buy from the 8 other locations selling the exact same thing you’re selling. As for the cream thing, I agree it’s bad when a customer breaks a cultural understanding that you’re not to fill up a cup with cream but then again you can always control it. Bring it back behind the counter, use the individual little servings. It’s a pain but if things are that bad, then you need to do things that allow you to control your customers experience in a way that doesn’t ruin your rep with the customer and make them feel like they’re getting ripped off. The business needs the customer’s money and the customer needs the service or product of the business. Finding the balance is how good businesses survive.
I’ll not be patronizing the murky coffee, thank you very much. Anyone who thinks only they know how to make a good cup of coffee is an idiot and too egocentric for me to deal with. I will drink my coffee as I see fit and no lowly coffee maker will change that.
I bet the barista rides a recumbent bike.
I’m completely on the consumer’s side.
1) Espresso over ice does not mean I’m going to add a ton of milk to it;
2) If people are abusing milk, keep it behind the counter or have your staff add it for them;
3) I don’t give a fuck what you think happens to the coffee when it hits the ice. It’s my coffee. Maybe I like those ‘acrid’ flavors.
In short, hope this publicity bites coffee house owner in the back and he looses business. Not acceptable.
I missed something. When I went to bed last night, this was a free country. And free means we’re free to run our business and make rules for how we do things. The beauty is that anyone who chooses can express their dissatisfaction by going somewhere else for their over priced exotic coffee or latte or whatever.
Although I don’t think the store owners policy makes sense, it doesn’t have to. It’s his store. If you don’t like it, go somewhere else. For whatever reason, this guy really really cares about his coffee, or latte or whatever. His store, his perogative.
I occasionally go to a cigar bar, where people can smoke and enjoy some of the finest cigars one can buy. They have a “no cheap cigars” policy. If someone were to light up a White Owl or a Swisher Sweet, they would be shown to the door faster than white on rice or dots on dice. It’s a place for cigar afficinatos.
So if this coffee guy wants to run an elite, particular business for coffee purists, it’s his business. If you don’t like it, go somewhere else.
“Unless the shop makes the customers sign an EULA, they can’t control what people decide to do with their products after they’re sold. After that, you just have 3 dicks in a dick-measuring contest. Congrats, you’re all winners.”
Ben, your an idiot. At no point did he try to prevent someone from doing something AFTER it was sold. Simply put they don’t offer it. The owner even stated the employee shouldn’t have given the guy the ice.
Looks like you better add your dick to that measuring contest.
Of course the whole thing could be fixed with a menu change…
espresso $1
espresso over ice $1,000,000
This way everyone gets what they want.
-Bill
Good God, there are a lot of condescending yahoos responding to this article. That goes double for everyone that says that Nick Cho is a terrible person because he missed paying some taxes. While it’d certainly behoove him to get an accountant, I look forward to someone telling you that you don’t deserve to have a place to live the next time you miss a rent payment.
That said, it seems to me they’re both wrong. Obviously, neither should have stooped to threats of violence or arson. Those aside, if Nick’s reasoning is that espresso over ice tastes bad, then he should let it taste bad. The “ghetto latte” issue is a little tougher, but my instinct would be to let the customer have it instead of fighting it – if you’re going to lose money as a result of one or two customers using this loophole, there’s something wrong with your business model.
And to the people complaining with this “customer is always right” crap . . . never, never, never let me hear you say that in my coffeehouse (which, frequently, happens to be Murky Coffee in Clarendon). I will punch you in the dick. The customer WAS right . . . in the 80s, back when you had to wear ties to dinner and call your boss “Mr. Johnson”. Now the customer/business relationship has changed fundamentally, so that customers have received the right to be recognized as more than a number and employees have received the right to not be treated like animals. If you don’t like this, then go buy a coffeemaker.
I side with the owner on this. His tax history is completely irrelevant.
He didn’t threaten to dick punch until arson was mentioned. His store, his clear policy, the customers choice to GTFO.
In fact, aside from the customer- I’d say the next largest share of the “blame” lies with the barista for not giving the Americano as an alternative. Although you can’t even be sure that it didn’t happen.
@m3rkvry: Are you seriously comparing one month’s rent to six-figures in delinquent taxes? Epic fail.
Bad publicity is still good publicity, now all he needs is marketing… like a t-shirt that says: “I got my dick punched at Murky’s”
/Golden
@afrix:
The owner is not under any obligation to provide any product or service to anyone and even less obligated to provide something that isn’t even on the menu.
The customer was being an entitled dick.
i have to side with the owner here. i ran the counter pretty much solo in a local coffee house for a year and a half and have seen firsthand how the “ghetto latte” and “milkmaids” can kill a coffee joints profits. “milkmaids” are folks who just order a small drip coffee and hang out all day refilling it with milk from the condiment table btw. i know there are plenty of honest folks who want an iced espresso in a tall cup but most folks who order a one ounce shot in a ten or twelve ounce cup full of ice are just going to fill the cup up with milk/cream/half and half forcing the store to take a loss on the sale. the store owners end up having to be jerks in order to protect themselves either by banning certain drinks on ice or cup sizes. and when the store owners take up these policies regardless of how calmly, honestly, and politely the person working behind the counter tries to explain the rules and why they are there some jerk who has been a regular and never bothered to tip before will toss a buck into the tip jar with some horrible insult or threat written on it. if the customer is the kind of guy his email reads as i am sure it was the first time he felt inclined to tip and the threat the owner complains of is real. and most coffee shop owners let the baristas bend the rules for customers they know to be honest. but baristas like to enforce the rules when dealing with regular customers that never tip or treat the cafe workers like crap if for no other reason then to drive them away to starbucks or some other chain that has lousy/overrated/overpriced coffee and even more draconian customer service policies.
I don’t know how I missed the coffee nazi saga.
@comicgeek77: Earlier, Gouda explained it perfectly.
Milk and other items left are a cost of doing business for any normal coffee shop. If you have milk and sugar out for people who buy regular coffee drinks, then you should be factoring it into your overhead costs. The same way you factor in napkins or ketchup or plastic bags for people to take away their purchases.
If the occasional person who buys an espresso and pours lots of milk in isn’t covered by the operating costs, you need to reconsider your planning and budget, rather than rail against customers. There will always be people who try to ‘take advantage’ or ‘go cheap’. If you drive them off, you might drive away their friends and family, and neighbors and acquaintances who you’ll alienate by going hard-core.
This financial information released about Cho (having some of his shops shut down for lack of tax payment) shows that he’s probably not planned well for the health of his business. It’s not his customers’ fault for “stealing” milk which virtually all shops absorb in their operation costs — it’s the old P to the 6th power – Prior Planning Prevents Piss-Poor Performance.
You can either raise the operating costs across the board (raising all your prices to cover them), or raise the price of the espresso. Either way, once a customer pays for an item, you have no right to castigate them for what they do with it (unless it’s battery acid and they blind someone with it). You can deny them service in the future, but what the barista did (starting off this elegy of crassness) was uncalled for.
By the way, I recently requested a decaf espresso from Starbucks. They just gave it to me for free.
Hurray for Murky coffee! Next time I am in the DC area, I’m gonna support this business. People are always trying to pull a fast one. Stop being cheap.
There was no arson threat. What the customer said is an expression meaning he’s never coming back. And if the man wants ice coffee and you have both ice and coffee sell him the damned drink and shut up about how you like your own coffee.
And stop calling yourselves baristas you’re waiters or coffee-jerks. You’re pouring coffee, sometimes over frozen water, not curing cancer so get over yourselves and get the man the drink he is paying for.
aaaaaannnnnd. Murky loses: [www.murkycoffee.com]
As a current Barista, I see the “ghetto latte” all the time, and yes, it is a little distracting and lame, and some people REALLY like milk – but thats okay, cause I know something they dont…
As for the way this guy handled the situation (the owner) he is 100% in the wrong, and a person can order their drink however they like. There is many times people order things I dont like, and think it kills the espresso, but its THEIR choice, not mine. It is my job to do what? Correct! MAKE THEIR DAMN DRINK HOW THEY LIKE AND WANT! PERIOD!
Dear Murky Coffee,
Your values are in the right place, but do not fuck with people who drink coffee how they want. Do no deny someone from doing what they want with their coffee. If you don’t like it, don’t have a store! And if you blog about it, don’t tell off your customer, because he, like me, will now never come into your establishment, and have already told 10 friends in the DC area who now are “former customers” as well.
Respectfully,
ROGER ALFORD