Step Four: Modifiers (or Changes to a Standard Drink)

Okay Princesses, now you can tell us all the changes you want made to your latte. Feel free to go nuts.

3 Splendas and cream in your coffee? You got it.
½ the normal amount of syrup? No problem.
5 shots?
1 shot instead of 2?
Breve?
Whole Milk?

Go for it.

However, you all need to stop being so picky about some of these.

¼ of a pump of syrup? Are you kidding me? There is no way to measure that!
½ a sugar packet? Honestly?
Milk at 173 degrees? Is 170 too cold? Do those three degrees matter that much?

I think that some of you need to just learn to sugar/sweeten/flavor your own coffee. We sell the syrups, and you can get sugar/sweeteners in any grocery store.

You should know that when you make requests like these, we do the whole thing anyway, or we don’t do it at all (i.e. When you ask for 3¼ pumps of vanilla syrup. We only add three.)

Usually, you can’t even tell the difference. (We’ve asked!)

Oh yeah, and for those of you that order a cheap drink, and then modify the heck out of it to get a more expensive drink at the cheaper price, you are the biggest princesses of all and make our lives horrible. It would just be easier for you to pay the dollar and have 1 or 2 modifers, than to save your money and potentially get the wrong drink because we can’t remember all the crap you want done to it. (We have a regular who orders a small iced Americano, in a large cup, with 3 pumps of vanilla, 2 pumps of hazelnut, 2 inches of cream, extra ice, and fill the rest with water. Really what she wants is an iced large vanilla latte, with ½ the vanilla, 2 pumps hazelnut, and creme.)

Step Three: Your Actual Drink

This may seem out of order, but it would help us all immensely if, when ordering in drive, you would tell us your drink before telling us all the changes you want made to it.

Some of you have such high-maintenance drinks that by the time you get to what kind of drink it starts as, we’ve forgotten whatever you said at the beginning.

It’s great that you want a large 3 Splenda, ½ the syrup, 1% milk, 4 shot, extra caramel, tan Mocha. Just awesome. But by the time you get to the Mocha, we’ve forgotten the 3 Splenda.

Our computers only allow us to add all of your changes after we punch in what the drink is, that’s why it would be helpful for you to state the drink first, and the changes after.

Step Two: What Size?

This applies to lobby as well, so let me run down a normal order:

Me: “Hi, how are you today?”
Customer: “Double Mocha Latte” or even “Triple Breve” (A triple breve what????)
Me: “What size would you like that today?”
Customer: “A double”
Me: “Yes, but what size?”
Customer: “I said I wanted a double Mocha latte!”
Me: “I understand, but what size?”

This conversation happens far more often than you think. What makes it really funny is when people then have to ask what our sizes are in order to say what size they want.

We’re not going to guess what size you want your drink, please figure it out and tell us.

How to Order Your Drink

I am continually amazed at the number of people who can’t seem to order their drink properly.

Now, I’m not talking about saying it properly. (Though many of you struggle with that as well.) No, I’m talking about how many of you leave out crucial parts of your drink when you order it.

So lets start from the beginning.

This post is part one of what will end up being many posts about how to properly order your drink. The easiest way for the barista to hear it, and the best way for you to actually get the drink that you want.

This all applies primarily in drive-thru where every single addition needs to be entered into the computer. However, most apply to both inside and drive.

Step One: Hot or Iced?

This one is the most irritating to fix (especially in drive), and that is why I’m including it first.

At the very beginning of your order, tell us whether you want the drink hot or cold.

For any drink ordered we automatically make the hot version (assuming there is a hot version). This is the standard for the drink.

We hate trying to hand you your drink and getting the “iced grimace”. This is the face you make when you wanted your drink made the opposite of what we actually made it (usually iced instead of hot, hence the name). Generally accompanied by “ssssss, it was supposed to be iced.” Sometimes we have made a mistake, but normally you forgot to specify.

It takes time to remake your drink, you get upset for having to wait longer (as do all the people behind you), and it wastes all the materials that went into the first one. If you would just specify at the box, life would be easier for everyone.