Sometimes on my morning dog walk, I stop by the Van Houtte's coffee shop near my house and pick up a coffee to go. Their filter coffee is better than the stuff at the Starbuck's across the street and they're a Quebec establishment so I prefer to give them my business.
The way it works is that they give you the cup and then you go fill it up at the urns. But almost every time I've been there, the server who hands me the paper cup puts their hands all over the rim and then all over the lid including the sip hole. Now, I am not a germaphobe by any means, but this is just ridiculous.
It's one of the most basic rules for food servers, especially when they're also handling money. And it's not as if it's any more difficult for them not to put their hands all over the rim and lid.
Depending on my state of mind, I either ignore situations like this and suck it up (metaphorically and literally) or, occasionally, I decide to say something. Yesterday, I said to the girl, "Please don't take this personally, but you just put your hands all over the rim."
Well, of course, she took it personally and then looked at me like I was a crazy woman. Clearly, she had never been trained not to put her hands all over the cup.
Since this was the umpteenth time this had happened to me at this particular Van Houtte's, I have decided to blog about it and officially complain to company management. And until, I get a satisfying response, I'm returning to Starbuck's, one of whose good qualities is that they train their Baristas not to do this.
2 comments:
Don't feel guilty about giving your business to Starbucks...
"On July 19, 2007, Van Houtte Inc. was acquired by LJVH Holdings Inc., a company indirectly controlled by Littlejohn & Co. Founded in 1996, Littlejohn is a Greenwich, Connecticut-based control-oriented private equity firm..."
Yeah I know, but it will always be local for me.
I actually don't feel guilty about patronizing Starbucks, it's just that Van Houtte's makes better coffee.
And funnily enough, they opened up several years after SBUX across the street -- in a very SBUX-like move -- and their cafe still looks a lot newer and nicer with its sleek leather chairs.
Alot of the SBUX regulars crossed the street to Van Houtte's except for the pan handler who remains faithful to SBUX and stations himself there with his dog every morning.
I do sort of feel guilty that I don't have to contribute to his coffers since I switched.
How did choosing cafes get so complicated?
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