Yesterday we ran an article on Sprudge.com called “A Barista Quandry: Handling Your Cafe’s Wayward Guests“. A couple of really cool emails have come through on the subject today, but there’s one we wanted to share with y’all in its entirety.
This email comes from Morgan Smith, a CSR for our friends and partners at PT’s Coffee in Topeka Kansas, reprinted here with permission:
I work for PT’s Coffee in Topeka, KS. I am a customer service rep on the wholesale side of our business now, but back when I started as a barista at our original location, handling mobs of crazies might as well have been on the daily task log. One of the things we did to make our shop safer was to encourage law enforcement to hang out at our cafe by offering a “cop discount”. It was only 10% off, which usually came down to a couple pennies but people love discounts regardless of the amount! This meant that from the moment we opened to closing time, we had a steady stream of loyal police officers wandering in and out of the cafe. This always made me feel safe and there were certainly times that we had to ask them to help usher crazies out the door (which they were happy to do). I like to think of the discount as paying for our own personal security squad, definitely worth it! -Morgan Smith, PT’s Coffee Roasting Co.
Now the original feature documented the woes at Think Coffee, which is on the island of Manhattan, so pretty different from Topeka, Kansas. But regardless of where you’re located, if security concerns are an issue at your cafe, “a steady stream of loyal police officers wandering in and out” sounds like a surefire way to mellow out the situation. Of course, everyone’s idea of community involvement is different, and some cafes won’t serve cops at all. This is not how we’d handle things – an officer discount makes a lot more sense than a refusal of service, frankly – but you know what? It’s a free country. You do you.
Keep those emails coming to wayward@sprudge.com – we’ll be posting more throughout the week.
Top photo from Zazzle.com
