What does it take to get a coffee in this hotel?
When we come to Portland - well, actually Tigard - we stay at the same hotel, the Embassy Suites. The staff have gotten to know us, and the breakfast crew predicts what kind of omelet we’ll have as we enter the atrium in the morning. But at night, it’s a different story. Emma likes to get a latte at night from the little coffee bar in the gift shop (I got turned off going in there because the biddy tending the shop is the paragon of negativity, and would talk my ear off about her various ailments and woes) so she’d go down there around 9:00 to get her coffee, and have to listen to the woman huff and puff about how she had just cleaned the machine. Then it became 8:00, and then 7:00. The relief attendant is even worse - she makes it sound like she’s doing you a big favour selling you a coffee. Last week, the excuse was that they had only skim milk. Then, it was a drama over wanting two coffees. Imagine, having to sell two coffees after 6:30 p.m.! And one of them decaf! I swear, if I had a video camera, I could make a “how not to” training video, no problem.
I’ve been reading the new book, The Starbucks Experience, which explains why we overpay for coffee at Starbucks: because of the user experience! Compare my experience at the hotel and my experience at Starbucks, where as I walk in the barista is asking what he can make for me before I even get to the cash register. I’m very happy to drive over to the mall for a coffee the way I like it: the coffee AND the service. Too bad the coffee shop in the hotel just doesn’t get it. The bumper sticker I say may read “Friends don’t let friends drink Starbucks” but until the rest can get their user experience up to the quality of the coffee, I know where I’ll have my coffee.