How hard it is to run this place

I have three favorite places to go for coffee down here, each one my favorite at different times of day and under different circumstances.  One's for morning, one's for after dinner, and one's for whenever I happen to be passing by it and get a whiff of what's brewing inside.

Last year the owner of my morning place sold out.  The new owner never seems to be enjoying her work.  She's a thin, blond woman with curling hair and features made plain by worry and resignation.  She looks as if she's forcing herself to grit her teeth and bear it without complaint, as if all the headaches and worries of running a business are part of a penance she's serving.

This morning, guy ahead of me tells the counter girl that one of the carafes is empty, one is mislabelled---it's supposed to be the house blend but it's raspberry creme---and a third splashed into his cup something that the label says is Columbian but smells suspiciously of hazelnut, meaning it's wearing the wrong name tag too.  The counter girl is flustered and apologetic, but the owner doesn't speak up, although she's standing right there, making a breakfast sandwich on a butcher's block.  She doesn't apologize, doesn't give immediate orders to the girls to fix the problem, and doesn't make a move to fix things herself.  Her jaw tightens and her expression is full of frustration, exasperation, and...martyrdom.

She says something, pretty much to herself, about someone being a funny, little Scandanavian something or other, referring, I guess, to whichever employee out back who made the coffee this morning, not angry as much as reminding herself that she'll never hire any more exchange students with suspect English language skills.

Then, without lifting her head, she shifts her eyes from the cutting board to give the complaining customer a hard look.

He was trying to be polite and helpful, actually.  But her look is a blaming look, as if the face of his deciding to come in for coffee this morning upset the time-space continuum and caused the little Scandanavian so and so to make those mistakes half an hour before he walked through the door.  It seems to me that she thinks he should understand, without having to be told, and as if it was his concern, how hard it is for her to run this place and not made it any harder for her by causing trouble by pointing out mistakes.

Comments

[Kevin Wolf]

My sister-in-law, who is a fine cook and a coffee freak, has a dream of running her own coffee shop. She'd be damn good at it, too.

This little scene would never play out with her...

[Raindog]

Talking about Chatham Provisions? Man, do I miss that place and its french donut muffins...

[Greg]

That's a sad story, Lance. Before you write the place off, are you tempted to talk to the owner and tell her what you observed? In a friendly, helpful way like the last customer?
Some people stiff waitstaff over poor service that may or may not be their fault. I always seek out the management to explain why I'm pissed. If met with an indifferent response, I don't go back...

[sfmike]

You scanned the whole scene perfectly. There are lots of people in jobs or with businesses where they are totally unsuited by temperament to be working in those jobs or businesses. It always feels like a sad waste of a human being.

And then there are people who are just plain twisted and hateful. I saw one on a bus yesterday in San Francisco, a nasty, obese Irish-American lady in her early 40s with glittering blue-green eyes who looked at everyone else on the packed bus with hatred and suspicion and who was doing her best to make her three daughters sitting next to her look at the world in the same way.

I'm not sure there's a distinction between the two types, but it made me thankful not to be trapped in their world.

[Uncle Merlin]

Yes I have to agree with Lance completely, our morning coffee place has lost its MoJo. I've lost most of my sense of taste this summmer but I can tell the coffees are very watered.
NOW I spent 20 years in the restaurant business and your greatest profit margin and profit generator is Coffee ( in America). You don't screw with the receipe, At all , you just brew it continually fresh if you want that impulse dollar coming in in between meal times.
We've had to move down the street to the evil coffee house.
( I got bilked out of doing $1500 work for the original owner and her friend years ago. So even though they are long gone owing alot more money around town than to just me, I still have resentment,even though the current owners have nothing to do with the incident. --See: Hagar the Horrible about grudges and what people can do with them!)

Signed--
In search of good coffee in Chatham.