{"id":7322,"date":"2016-01-13T08:00:48","date_gmt":"2016-01-13T16:00:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/freshcup.com\/?p=7322"},"modified":"2016-02-24T15:08:36","modified_gmt":"2016-02-24T23:08:36","slug":"questioning-the-condiment-stand","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/freshcup.com\/questioning-the-condiment-stand\/","title":{"rendered":"Questioning the Condiment Stand"},"content":{"rendered":"

[I]magine you\u2019re at a bar. You order a Manhattan, but after taking a sip you discover it\u2019s not sweet enough. You politely mention it to the bartender, who reaches behind the counter, hands you a bottle of vermouth and says, \u201cHelp yourself.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to Cole McBride, most coffee shops do something similar with their condiment stand. Baristas serve an incomplete beverage and ask the customer to finish it, all the while expecting a tip. McBride is manager at Las Vegas\u2019 PublicUs<\/a>, a new caf\u00e9 joining a growing number of coffee shops rejecting condiment stands in favor of a full-service approach.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want to make the drink for you from start to finish,\u201d says McBride. At PublicUs, sugar and cream are precisely measured by baristas and offered to customers in numerical increments, from one to six. McBride credits the system not only for improving hospitality, but greater consistency and efficiency as well. McBride is not alone in his assessment.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe wanted our guests to do as little as possible to enjoy the beverages we were making them,\u201d says Sam Lewontin, manager of New York\u2019s Everyman Espresso<\/a>. Lewontin does not mince words when asked his opinion of condiment bars. \u201cThey\u2019re always kind of a disaster,\u201d he says. \u201cAt best they are a place where you serve your guests things you can\u2019t be bothered with. At worst they are messy, not well stocked, and traffic bottle necks.\u201d Everyman decided to forego the condiment stand when owner Sam Penix and Lewontin were planning their second location. The pair completely re-imagined their service model around the customer\u2019s experience. \u201cWe really wanted our caf\u00e9s to be about hospitality from end to end,\u201d says Lewontin. \u201cWe didn\u2019t want a moment where our customers didn\u2019t feel taken care of.\u201d After the experiment worked, Penix and Lewontin remodeled Everyman\u2019s original location around the same system.<\/p>\n

\"Milk
Milk is offered by request at Coava Coffee Roasters caf\u00e9 in Portland. Above, the condiment bar at Birch Coffee in Manhattan. (Both photos: Cory Eldridge.)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Unlike the short lived no-sugar trend, proponents of no condiment stations are insistent they are not trying to force their taste preferences on their customers. \u201cWe ask everyone if they want cream and sugar,\u201d says McBride. Likewise, the team at Everyman Espresso went through extensive taste testing to find their recipes for sugar and cream.<\/p>\n

Although both Lewontin and McBride insist most people enjoy being served, they also recognize some customers prefer to doctor their coffee themselves. \u201cCream and sugar is on a level of being holy with certain people. They take it seriously,\u201d says McBride. Lewontin agrees. \u201cThere are definitely people out there who want to do it themselves,\u201d he says, estimating ten percent of cream-and-sugar drinkers prefer self service. Everyman accommodates this demographic by offering small carafes of cream and sugar by request. Customers are then free to take their personal condiment stand to their table. \u201cThe guest still has the opportunity to fulfill that ritual,\u201d says Lewontin.<\/p>\n

\"Condiments_Thatchers\"<\/p>\n

Established caf\u00e9s that are thinking about removing their condiment stand should proceed with caution. Successfully implementing a full-service approach requires extensive training of staff, exact measuring tools, and possibly a full caf\u00e9 remodel. Training should teach baristas how to curate a full service experience for their customers, to ask all customers their drink preferences, and guide new customers through the system.<\/p>\n

Behind the counter, McBride and Lewontin look to the techniques of mixologists to ensure consistency: good jiggers with precise measurements are needed for reproducibility. The physical layout of the caf\u00e9 comes into play as well. \u201cCondiment bars are fixtures,\u201d says Lewontin. \u201cIf you suddenly take all of the condiments off it, that\u2019s weird.\u201d McBride is also skeptical that a caf\u00e9 could change their system. \u201cI\u2019m not sure if some caf\u00e9s are laid out in a way that they could do this and have good service,\u201d he says. PublicUs relies on servers to check if customers are happy with their beverages. If the cream or sugar isn\u2019t perfect, they remake it.<\/p>\n

Yet for Lewontin, the benefits outweigh the costs. \u201cNot having a bar moves the line faster and keeps our costs way down,\u201d he says. \u201cYou\u2019re wasting less and keeping your caf\u00e9 cleaner and better looking.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2014Michael Butterworth is a regular contributor to\u00a0<\/em>Fresh Cup and the founder of\u00a0<\/em>the\u00a0<\/em>Coffee Compass<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Will milk and sugar be the domain of baristas?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26,"featured_media":7324,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"limit_modified_date":"","last_modified_date":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}},"beyondwords_generate_audio":"","beyondwords_project_id":"","beyondwords_content_id":"","beyondwords_player_style":"","beyondwords_language_id":"","beyondwords_title_voice_id":"","beyondwords_body_voice_id":"","beyondwords_summary_voice_id":"","beyondwords_error_message":"","beyondwords_disabled":"","beyondwords_podcast_id":"","beyondwords_hash":"","publish_post_to_speechkit":"","speechkit_hash":"","speechkit_generate_audio":"","speechkit_project_id":"","speechkit_podcast_id":"","speechkit_error_message":"","speechkit_disabled":"","speechkit_access_key":"","speechkit_error":"","speechkit_info":"","speechkit_response":"","speechkit_retries":"","speechkit_updated_at":"","_speechkit_link":"","_speechkit_text":""},"categories":[26,18,24],"tags":[607,606,604,608],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nQuestioning the Condiment Stand - 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