My pet peeve for today is how people think that it is completely acceptable to bring outside food and/or drink into coffee shops. Not only do they think it is OK, but they seem to think it is some sort of right they are entitled to. Some people have to nerve to review a coffee shop poorly or defame it on-line as a result of not being able to bring in outside food and/or drink. Give me a break!
People rarely think it is OK to bring outside food into a restaurant. Who walks into a restaurant with their own food and expects to take up a seat in said restaurant and be allowed to eat it without purchasing anything or perhaps only purchasing a drink? Not very many damn people!
One might naturally ask, how is a coffee shop different than a restaurant then? I'll tell you how they are similar first. They both sell ONLY food and drink. These are the ONLY products they sell. Now, on to how they are different.... 1.) Many coffee shops do not have their own kitchens so they bring pre-packaged foods in from other vendors. This means that the profit margin on said foods is much smaller than the profit margin of restaurants who make their own on site. 2.) Most coffee shops sell only inexpensive items. You will rarely find items that cost over $5.00 and many items cost $2.00 or less. I'd say the average ticket at a coffee shop is around $5.00 where the average ticket at a restaurant is easily four or five times that. 3.) People often spend more time in a coffee shop than a restaurant. It is not unusual for an individual to make a small purchase at a coffee shop but stay for hours and hours on end. In a restaurant, it is unusual for people to stay longer than an hour or two. Because of this, restaurants can turn tables more quickly. 4.) Most coffee shops offer more, let's call them "fringe benefits" than restaurants. It is very rare today to find a coffee shop that doesn't have free wi-fi. In fact, keeping wi-fi reliable and convenient while protecting the business from illegal activities taking place over the coffee shop's network can be a major investment in both time and dollars for the coffee shop. Reliable, convenient, free, wi-fi is the exception for restaurants rather than the norm. It is certainly not a requirement for a restaurant. As mentioned before, coffee shops also offer the benefit of providing a place for someone to read, study, or socialize much longer than restaurants do; in some cases, as long as the customer wishes. 5.) Lastly, I will admit that coffee shops have one advantage on restaurants when it comes to making profits. This advantage is that a percentage of the customers take their orders to go. To-go orders are a way to make profit without the customer "consuming" a table or wi-fi. This benefit is offset by the cost of "to go" products (cups, lids, carrying cases, sleeves, etc.) which cost considerably more than the cost that the restaurant has of washing dishes. The cost is increased even more when the coffee shop caters to it's environmentally conscience customers by buying eco friendly "to go" products. Also, this point is somewhat irrelevant to this rant as customers taking their purchase to go could not by definition consume outside food and drink rather than or in addition to making a purchase while at a coffee shop.
So, in summary, in coffee shops, people are spending less than in restaurants on products that have a slimmer profit margin than restaurants therefore making the shops less money than in restaurants, while staying longer than in restaurants, and often consuming more fringe benefits than in restaurants. But still.... people are offended when they can't bring outside food and/or drink into a coffee shop but would most likely never dream of engaging in the same behavior in a restaurant. WTF?!?
Why are people so spoiled and entitled when it comes to coffee shops but not when it comes to restaurants?!? Where are places you can take your own food? You can take it on a picnic or to your house or to a friend's house..... maybe to work or in your car. None of these places depend on your money to stay open. I'll be straight up. It costs roughly $40,000 A MONTH to run a busy, successful, high quality coffee shop. Do people have any idea how many $1.50 or $2.00 cups of coffee a coffee shop has to sell just to pay the bills? Maybe people don't think about it or maybe people do and they just don't care. Either way, people do not offer coffee shops the same respect they afford to restaurants when it comes to bringing in outside food and/or drink and that annoys me.
Saturday, April 17, 2010
Friday, April 16, 2010
Friday, April 16, 2010
So, I went to small Christian private schools from Kindergarten through my Junior year. This provided me with a great education resulting from a lot of personalized attention and small class sizes. When I say small class sizes, there were rarely more than 20 people in each grade. The schools consisted of preschool through 12th grade, so it was not unusual to go to school with the same people your entire grade school experience. You spent a lot of time with these kids and literally grew up with them.
As I mentioned, these were Christian private schools. I believe that in addition to the quality of education, I benefited from the Christian principles taught in the schools. Since graduating and moving to a different city, I've placed a lot of those values and my relationship with God on the back burner. I'm not proud of this, but that's a different blog altogether.
On to what annoys me! In this day and age of social media, many of my old class mates have found me on facebook or myspace. It seems it does not take long for them to say something really offensive. They'll circulate something about how unjust society is towards white people or they'll use a derogatory term for people that are gay.
Now, I know I moved off to a "liberal school" in a "liberal city" but it just doesn't make sense to me that these people that come from the same Christian background I do should be so judgemental and discriminatory. It gives me impressions of them that I won't go into here. I can't and don't claim to be a wonderful Christian, but it seems elementary not to hate people based solely on a category they fall into. Christ certainly didn't teach hate, but outside of Christianity, plain 'ol good people shouldn't think/feel/act this way.
Why should you have to live in a liberal city to find kindness and acceptance? What is it about my old classmates that causes them to discriminate against groups different than them? I don't believe that that is what we were taught. I've stood up to them a few times and I've been met with excuses or weak arguments supported by more hatred and/or ignorance. There've also been times when I've just deleted them without standing up to them. I regret those times. I also regret that this discrimination adds to a separation between myself and everyone I grew up with.
So, my pet peeve for today is the fact that the most offensive, discriminatory peers in my life come from a group of people that I grew up with. It extends to my inability to understand why they are this way. Finally, the gulf it creates between us (at least in my head) is really annoying.
As I mentioned, these were Christian private schools. I believe that in addition to the quality of education, I benefited from the Christian principles taught in the schools. Since graduating and moving to a different city, I've placed a lot of those values and my relationship with God on the back burner. I'm not proud of this, but that's a different blog altogether.
On to what annoys me! In this day and age of social media, many of my old class mates have found me on facebook or myspace. It seems it does not take long for them to say something really offensive. They'll circulate something about how unjust society is towards white people or they'll use a derogatory term for people that are gay.
Now, I know I moved off to a "liberal school" in a "liberal city" but it just doesn't make sense to me that these people that come from the same Christian background I do should be so judgemental and discriminatory. It gives me impressions of them that I won't go into here. I can't and don't claim to be a wonderful Christian, but it seems elementary not to hate people based solely on a category they fall into. Christ certainly didn't teach hate, but outside of Christianity, plain 'ol good people shouldn't think/feel/act this way.
Why should you have to live in a liberal city to find kindness and acceptance? What is it about my old classmates that causes them to discriminate against groups different than them? I don't believe that that is what we were taught. I've stood up to them a few times and I've been met with excuses or weak arguments supported by more hatred and/or ignorance. There've also been times when I've just deleted them without standing up to them. I regret those times. I also regret that this discrimination adds to a separation between myself and everyone I grew up with.
So, my pet peeve for today is the fact that the most offensive, discriminatory peers in my life come from a group of people that I grew up with. It extends to my inability to understand why they are this way. Finally, the gulf it creates between us (at least in my head) is really annoying.
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