Joli and I went on a date night last Friday, and I took her to a rather odd area of San Diego called “University Heights.” It has some good coffee shops and some neat old homes. However the culture is a little different than the two of us. There are a lot of new age people and gay couples, so we feel a little out of place! I wanted to take Joli to a coffee shop called Twiggs. I’ve never been there at night but I knew they had awesome coffee and great desserts.

Joli’s first impression (my second) was not very positive. The girl behind the counter was not very friendly. She asked what we wanted and we told her. My order was rather simple. Can you guess what that was? “Yes…umm…I would like a ahh medium size coffee with no cream, no sugar, just black please…Oh and can I have it in a mug instead of a paper cup?” Joli ordered a Mocha. I asked if she could have hers in a mug too. The barista began to make Joli’s drink in a cup when the cashier said rather rudely, “They want them in MUUGGS!” I thought to myself, “Is that a problem having my drink in a mug? Was it going to cost more? Oh no! Does that mean they would have to wash two mugs when we were done, and that was going to be too painful?” It just seemed that she was irritated with the fact that I asked for a mug. Why did I ask for a mug in the first place? I guess because I saw the used car lot packed full of of them right behind her with an invisible sign that would have read “Use Us! Keep us from getting dusty!”

Because I felt the lady did not like the fact that we ordered our coffee drinks in mugs instead of paper cups, I decided to tell her why. “Well, coffee tastes better in a mug!” I thought she would have agreed with me when she responded in a derogatory voice, “It actually makes the drinks Colder!” I said, “That’s why you HEAT the mugs up first!”

Can you believe that she seemed upset that we asked for coffee in mugs and thought it made them cold so why try it? She had no customer service in her blood. She probably never read, “How to win friends and influence people.” I will give her a little credit. Coffee gets cold faster in a cold mug. She’s right! I must admit! However, if I would have gone to Starbucks and asked, “Can I have my coffee in a mug?” Do you know what they would have said and done? “Absolutely, sir!” They would have then grabbed the mug, poured boiling water in the mug for a few seconds, dumped it out and poured my hot coffee into the heated mug. Why? So that the coffee would stay hotter longer. Coffee has a better taste in mugs. This is a fact! Ask any coffee snob. Besides, extremely hot coffee in a paper cup with a top on it has to have a hot coffee holder to keep me from burning my hands. Have you ever tried drinking hot coffee with a top on it without burning the top of your mouth? Impossible! So there are many health benefits to drinking coffee in a mug!

The customer service at Twiggs was terrible. The desserts were awesome. However, if we were ordering by phone and got our coffee delivered to our door step by an outsider, it might have been better. The girl behind the counter was friendly to some people that came through her doors that night but she did not give Twiggs a very good name.

As I reflected on my experience and gave Joli an update that evening, I basically told her that there is a reason Starbucks has done so well in America. Starbucks trains their employees to have good service. Their coffee is terrible but their service: perfect. It is extremely rare to go into a Starbucks and get an unfriendly barista or sales clerk who will challenge you and act as the Coffee Know It All. They are consistent and let their staff know what their core values are. A little coffee shop can be just as successful as Starbucks in an area of town if they were committed to training their staff and properly managing the results.

To sum it up, I don’t think Miss Coffee Know It All really knew that much about coffee.