I am at Murky Coffee, where I just heard a conversation in which the barista told a guy that he was not allowed to pour his espresso over ice.
“But that’s how I want it,” the guy said.
“You can’t have it over ice. It ruins the quality of the coffee. It’s also against our store policy,” the barista said. After the customer left the counter, the barista was fuming and told his coworker, “I almost told that guy not to come back.”
Thanks, Nick, for hiring such helpful young people who uphold basic tenets of customer service. Where would the world be if customers could get what they wanted? This young fellow did a good job protecting the ignorant customer from cold espresso.
Barista guy – get over it. It’s just coffee, not a matter of safety or health, and the guy knows how he wants it.
I can understand their motives. They want coffee in, what they consider, its pure form. I respect their commitment to the way they think coffee should be served, but they have to recognize it’ll cost them patrons, which is unfortunate.
I’m pretty sure I’ve been served an iced americano at Murky’s before. That’s fundamentally the same drink. This doesn’t sound like a case of story policy, but a surly barista. I agree with Carl: Get over it, barista guy.
Yeah, I get that, Tom. They really are experts and know coffee from a technical standpoint better than most people do, but they don’t know the way customers want it. Good, unadulterated coffee is something pretty special, but the subtleties are lost on most of us.
The end result – that guy’s dollars are going to go somewhere else in the future.
Brian – right on!
I was at Murky today and didn’t see this happen, but it’s not fair to blame the barista for enforcing the store’s official policy, or for the customer to demand that the staff violate it. Straight espresso and the classic cappuccino are signature beverages at Murky. They don’t ice them, they don’t serve them to go. Saying no in these particular instances shows the pride they take in their work. It might cost them a few customers, but it helps build the company culture of being the most devoted to coffee quality in the DC area. Personally, I respect that. And having seen several years’ worth of baristas go though the store, I think the current staff is generally one of the friendliest.
(Disclosure: I worked at the Murky Clarendon store back in 2004-05.)
I got an email from a coffee expert who explained something rather important about the science of coffee:
“Pouring espresso over ice ruins the crema, the golden brown top layer of an espresso shot that not only gives espresso the majority of its flavor and sweetness, but is also the marker of a true espresso, in a way that using an espresso in an iced Americano does not. Destroying the crema results in a beverage that lacks the flavor that many people (to name a few, the farmers, roasters and baristas) have worked very hard to create.”
I stand corrected on my assumption that iced espresso and hot were merely separated by temperature. Thanks, my friend!
I also got wind from another person who witnessed the interaction between the customer and employee. Apparently this was more a case of the customer being a dick than poor customer service.
With the above explanation of what happens to espresso when introduced to ice, I can see why there would be a policy against serving it that way.
My apologies to the young fellow who I assumed was being a jerk.
This entry on And I Am Not Lying may interest you.
More like Rashomon than ever. Thanks for the link, Paulo. In this age, everyone has a blog and I am glad about that. Jeff – thanks for posting about your experience!
Ok, this is something I’ve always wanted to see – a ‘real life’ incident posted with various POVs. I never thought I’d see it outside of Hollywood fakery; this is just plain cool.
Ok, now that I’m done geeking out…
Hey man — I can freely admit I was being a dick. And I’ll even admit that sometimes I’m a barbarian that doesn’t appreciate the subtleties in things. But being a dick doesn’t start out of nowhere. Usually rotten customer service brings out the worst in people.
If they have a policy against serving iced espresso, well, that’s pretty dumb, but I kind of get it. However, giving customers a long, patronizing lecture … I don’t get that at all. There was an educational opportunity there to teach me the difference between iced and regular coffee. They blew it. I think a much better blog post could’ve been been “gosh, I really learned something from a passionate barista today — a guy who taught me something about his craft.”
And, given that Murky Coffee just lost an entire store, I’d think they’d want to keep the customers they have.
I’m a writer, photographer, blogger and storyteller too. I know something about working my ass off on a project and letting it go. I don’t get mad when people read my blog on a blackberry, or in RSS where they can’t see my photos. I don’t have a tantrum when people skim my stuff or misunderstand the point. It’s part of the way the world works — make something, let it go, let it take on its own life.
And, dick or not, it’s still just coffee.
There sits, at the register at Murky, a sign that says what they won’t ice. It’s not a lengthy list, but it’s their policy. And they have that right. I’ve watched them turn away people for double-parking in their lot, too. It’s their right. It’s their product.
Oh, and by the way, your Dick Move is now posted above the register.
Jeff’s relating of the incident sure sounds like a case of the problem clearly being not the policy but the crappy way of enforcing it. All the barista had to do was say “we don’t ice expresso straight because it ruins the crema – how about an Americano with 4 shots, light on the water?”
I met Jeff at a WaPo blogger event a little over a year ago (before he moved to NYC) and hung out with him later in the evening. I’d be surprised if he instigated an incident – I found him to be perfectly cordial, if not tolerant of jackholery.
Murky, on the other hand, I find perfectly capable of this shittyness. I once had this exchange there:
The person at the register says some variation of “What would you like?”
I say “Do you have any other non-dairy alternatives other than soy?”
“What else would there be?”
“… I really don’t know. That’s why I’m asking.”
“No.”
“… okay.”
There’s a lot of ground between sycophant and snotty, but Murky doesn’t seem very interested in exploring it.
Tom – just because it’s their right and their product doesn’t make it good business sense. And in a culture where people will overpay for lousy espresso drinks at Starbucks, it’s especially bad business sense to go above and beyond to alienate a customer.
They have the right to choose who their customers are, but they also have every right to fail at their business for not serving a wider audience.
I’d just like the junk store back, please. Way more interesting than Murky.
Barista’s a tool. Writing a blog post about it, makes _you_ a tool, albeit after the fact.
Get out of the damn coffee shop. All of you! Spending time there is attention-seeking behavior. Did Mommy not breast-feed enough? If you’re too stupid or lazy to make your own, and need to be belittled in public, Murky sounds perfect!
Tomorrow, on what I saw at WalMart:
The claim than espresso over ice ruins the crema, but iced Americano does not seems implausible at best. Is there some sore of reasoning or evidence that adding extra water somehow protects the espresso from the ice? That’s just a weird claim.
Blunder we’ve done Wal-mart already. I think Target is next on the calendar. Maybe K-Mart if we’re feeling white trashy that day.
But what if I don’t CARE if the ice ruins the crema? Isn’t that my choice?
Sure, it’s your choice.
Before you pass judgment, recognize some restaurants won’t serve you a steak cooked more than medium, because they find that objectionable to their preparation and to the cut of beef.
The same applies to coffee. Murky proudly says on their register what they won’t ice. It’s not a long list, but espresso’s on it.
Some coffee shops pride themselves on their consistent quality. If they choose not to allow poorly made coffee to pass their counter top, that should be respected.
You don’t ask a sushi chef to put ketchup on your nigiri. You don’t ask a fashion designer to embroider minnie-mouse on your shirt, just because that’s ‘how you want it.’ You’re offending them and their standards. Some view making coffee as an art, just like photography, cooking, writing, etc.
No, but after I buy the nigiri, if I want to ketchupize it, why the hell not?
“some restaurants won’t serve you a steak cooked more than medium”
…mostly because they don’t know *HOW* to cook a steak well-done. True story.
Beef shouldn’t be served well done. Seriously.
Some restaurants won’t prepare a steak over medium because if you ask for well done but when it arrives at the table, and you think that means “just a little pink inside” they can’t fix it, they just wasted a steak.
If Murky employees want to be insufferable snobs, they should be prepared for customers to warn people about it.
I would ask a fashion designer to embroider Minnie Mouse on my shirt if I wanted it that way, because I would be paying that fashion designer for a service. And if I want to put ketchup on my nigiri, I don’t think the sushi chef has a right to say anything.
They are in service industries, and I couldn’t care less about what offends their delicate sensibilities. Please.
I’m a consultant and I view some of my creative work as art, too, but if my client wants something stupid or ugly I do it – because it’s my job to do so. The barista isn’t paid to be a connoisseur, he/she’s being paid to make coffee.
Either the barista’s a professional in a customer service business, with a deep understanding of the nature of the coffee and desire to share his passon. Or the barista’s some minimum-wage counter monkey, punching some guy’s clock to pay for his weed.
In the first case, the barista understands the reason behind the policy, and can say, “Friend, you only think you want that. Let me give you something that’s just as cold and just as strong, but tastes way better.”
In the second case, the barista should be humble about his ignorance, not snotty, and stop giving the guy lip. Trying to improve the customer’s experience by ruining his experience is futile and idiotic.
Either way, the customer was a dick after the barista was. That doesn’t excuse either burst of rudeness, but the store started it, and they’re the alleged professionals.
Yeah, the customer loses the argument with the scribbling on the bill. Right up until that point, he had God on his side, I think.
Every restaurant has a right to have a menu, which may not include “iced espresso,” and every restaurant (or coffee shop) can decide whether they offer special orders not on the menu.
Where they’re being absurd is in leaning over and lecturing the guy about what he does with the espresso after he buys it, because that is not the way the world works. If you aren’t prepared for people to decide how to serve your food to themselves, then cut it up and spoon it into their mouths yourself and sell it no other way. Otherwise, accept that you are in charge of your part — what happens to the drink BEFORE you sell it to the customer — and the customer is in charge of his part, which is what happens to the drink AFTER you sell it to him. You can’t keep people from adding too much milk and sugar, you can’t keep them from salting their eggs more than they should…life’s too short.
“I would ask a fashion designer to embroider Minnie Mouse on my shirt if I wanted it that way, because I would be paying that fashion designer for a service.”
No. You’re paying the designer for a PRODUCT.
So you can ask for something stupid, and they would have the right to say, ‘no, I won’t do that.’ If you bought their shirt, and ruined it in front of their face, they would have every right to be offended. Especially since ‘designer’ clothiers, like ‘designer coffee shops,’ want to keep their product consistently high-quality.
You can do what you want with what you buy, sure. But you shouldn’t be a dick, period. And this interaction sounds like two dicks being dicky to one another. No surprise, I guess. But the indignation at ‘coffee snobbery’ is ridiculous.
If they don’t offer iced espresso, they don’t offer it. There’s no point in being a prick like the blogger was. And the fact that he’s proud of his childish behavior is embarrassing for him.
BTW, I’d think Splenda, Sweet N Low, & Equal would do a hell of a lot more to ruin the “nirvana” of perfect coffee.
In the end, I hope they get that in today’s economy, a $3-$5 cup of coffee is a luxury that demands HIGHER levels of service, not lower.
Do you not think the Murky staff are fully aware that they will loose customers to the double fatty caramel whip cream blendy type drinks with ice at starbucks? They don’t care! Just like the chefs of fine dining establishments could care less when you walk out because they won’t do substitutions on recipes that they pain stakingly pour there heart into.
Murky is as much a coffee shop as they are a business trying to market themselves differently and attain a higher level of quality. Unfortunately for you, you do not fit that business model. If you want pedestrian, go pedestrian. Don’t try and drag better people down to your 20oz, ‘my way or the highway’ level.
The customer is not always right. You would all know that if you had ever worked customer service. In fact, the customer is hardly ever correct about anything and it’s now become our job to educate the mindless masses who have been coddled by the starbucks’ and mcdonalds’ for oh so long.
If you’re looking to start a fight and berate someone because you’re not in charge at home or at work, then go to that magical ‘third place’ called starbucks. That’s what they’re trained for.
@11 Don:
Other non-dairy alternatives to soy milk: rice milk, hemp milk, and (god help us) dry powered non-dairy creamer.
soy milk is the creamiest.
rice milk is cleaner.
hemp milk is drier.
Jonathan – right on. Murky is a gourmet coffee place. They know their stuff and it’s high quality, to be sure. If you simply want expensive coffee, go to Starbuck’s. They will hook you up for quite a few pretty pennies, whether it smells like cat piss or not. If you want great coffee for high prices, go to Murky. Bad coffee for cheap? Try McDonald’s.
What about great, cheap coffee? Haven’t run across that yet but y’all let me know if you do.
But even if the customer isn’t always right, it’s better to try to educate him than be pedantic and highfalutin about it. If you go one way, you have a customer for life. Go the other way and you get this type of situation – a lost customer and a couple public forums of people talking about it.
if you want great espresso for cheap(er), get a Nespresso Machine (and an Nespresso Aeorcinno if you like lattes). Then you can make great coffee at home for lots cheaper, and even pour it over ice and F-up the crema flavor if that’s what you are into. Ever since my husband bought this machine, which takes cute little cartridges of coffee, I can’t stand most coffee shop coffee. Plus, I don’t have to deal with Jackholes of any sort. The Aerocinno makes a nice frothy heated milk for hot lattes.
Well, I was willing to give the store the benefit of the doubt, but when i went to their website using their store name dot com, I was surprised to see this as the most recent post. (I paste it here in case they decide, on my advice, that it was kind of WILDLY unprofessional and take it down)
———————-
from Nick
Open Letter to Jeff Simmermon
Dear Jeff Simmermon,
So as you’ve seen, there’s a little blog-thing going around today on BoingBoing and Metafilter about some sort of incident at the shop this past weekend.
(Original blog post here. Also blogged here and here.)
I suppose some sort of two-cents is warranted here.
Okay, we don’t do espresso over ice. Why? Number one, because we don’t do it. Number two, because we don’t do it. Mostly for quality reasons. Also, because more than half the time, it’s abused (Google “ghetto latte”).
We have some policies at murky coffee. No sleeping in the shop. If you’re asleep, you’ll be tapped on the shoulder and asked not to sleep in the shop. We’ve had to ban a customer because of his chronic napping.
No modifications to the Classic Cappuccino. No questions will be answered about the $5 Hot Chocolate (during the months we offer it). No espresso in a to-go cup. No espresso over ice. These are our policies. We have our reasons, and we’re happy to share them.
To others reading this I will say that if you don’t like the policies, I respectfully recommend that you find some other place that will give you what you want, or select something that we can offer you. David, the barista in question, is respectful, passionate, and cares about making good coffee, and he cares about murky’s policies. Nobody’s perfect, and maybe David could have chosen different words or a slightly different tact in responding to Jeff Simmermon’s request. But that’s life. At murky, we treat people with common courtesy, and expect the same from our customers. Not in response or in turn, but because that’s how people are supposed to treat each other. We’re not supposed to go through life looking for reasons to get pissed off. Life’s too short for that sort of thing.
To Mr. Simmermon, you overplayed your hand with your vulgar tip-schtick. While I certainly won’t bemoan you your right to free-speech, I have to respond to you in your own dialect: Fuck you, Jeff Simmermon. Considering your public threat of arson, you’ll understand when I say that if you ever show your face at my shop, I’ll punch you in your dick.
Respectfully,
Nick
Owner, murky coffee
————-
wow…
Respectfully?! really?
Nice way to spin something that is hurting your public image. You could do better with Ari Gold from Entourage.
(Love the show JP and crew.)
Wow, brave man, that Nick — moderating his comments after getting flayed a bit on the internet and then threatening to punch Jeff in the dick.
I’m just having a hard time reconciling his whole “treat people with common courtesy” thing with his non-payment of many months’ worth of DC taxes, the taxes that pay for schools, infrastructure, social services, and a whole slew of other things. And he owed taxes on money he earned atop these idiotic rules he’s set up; I’m glad his old Hill location will soon be someone else who might have a more sane view of what it means to be a businessman.
Dear Nick, Owner, murky coffee,
You are a tool. Get a life you coffee-douche.
Respectfully,
Michael, former murky coffee customer
p.s.
after reading their response… does anyone else have “Soup Nazi” running through their brain?
Espresso over ice isn’t any less pure! Providing you ice it quickly it tastes damn good!
Personally I think milk and sugar ruins coffee. But hey, Nick CoffeeMaster Murky sells people espresso with those options. I bet they even let people put soy milk in there. Strikes me as a rich kid with a coffee shop, more interested in being cool, having attitude than making money, building clientele. I especially think attitude ruins coffee.
When they go out of business, and they will go out of business within two years most likely, the sign will read “Closed: You couldn’t quit drinking at Starbucks”. Just like every single ratty bookstore I’ve been at that wouldn’t order books blames Barnes & Nobles and Amazon. Seriously, Coffee is a commodity, a product. If you want to run a coffee place use superior beans and treat the customer better than Starbucks will. The fact that they can’t outsell a place that sells edible Diesel fuel says something about the quality of atmosphere and customer experience.
To all that claim that it should be about the quality of the drink, I can understand that. But Starbucks will let you piss in your own cup without making a big deal about it if you so choose. When every single Independent you like closes, it won’t be because of quality. It WILL be a result of inferior customer service.
Quality is a great thing and if their standards are about quality, I hope Murky sticks to those standards. However, most of us do not have the palate to appreciate such things.
I make beer and know something about it and can tell you with certainty that brews like Miller Lite and Budweiser are not what I would consider even good quality. However, these brews have been around for a long time and are not going anywhere.
Basically, for most people, beer is an alcohol delivery device, and for most people, coffee is a caffeine delivery device. As such, it feels fancy to dress up coffee and give it different, foreign names. In the end, most people do not drink it for the aesthetic experience, but might enjoy the taste as they get their fix of caffeine. In these cases, quality goes by the wayside.
Will quality keep Murky going? For their sake, I hope so. Realistically, I would be surprised to see that happen. Good customer service would help, as would coffee education. Just imagine if we could all be made to appreciate a cup of really good coffee or espresso. Getting us hooked on that experience and educating us will help that.
Nick – I recommend doing some public tastings and telling us what we should be looking for in flavor, just as vintners will do with their wines. Or if you don’t want a public spectacle like this, do it with me, and I will record it and post it here.
Here’s an email I sent to Nick at Murky Coffee. I included my name and address in the email.
—
I’m signing this note with my name and address. I’m not using any cuss words or insults or threats of physical violence.
You can see I live in Silver Spring, MD. That’s DC area, and I make it in to Arlington from time to time. Potentially I’m a customer of yours, though I don’t think I’ve ever been in your shop.
You had a chance to respond to Jeff Simmermon, and a wide audience to see your response, and you chose to do it an obnoxious way that only made you and your shop look worse. You are contemptuous of your customers, you are a pettifogger, and you use racist language. The term “ghetto latte” is inherently racist.
A month from now, if I happen to walk or drive past Murky Coffee, I won’t remember why I don’t like Murky Coffee. I’ll just remember that there’s something about the shop that left a really bad taste in my mouth, and I won’t go in.
First of all, Murky is awesome. The coffee is delicious. The people who work there actually care about making a good product and serving it well and, more importantly, are generally incredibly friendly, nice people.
Sometimes the customer is just wrong. I think we all agree makes you gauche and ridiculous to sit down in a fine restaurant, order an expensive bottle of wine, and then demand they put ice in your glass. This is basically the same thing.
Furthermore, no matter who you are, no matter what a shop did to you (in this case, put up with a difficult customer) there is NEVER an excuse to scrawl “Fuck you and your precious coffee policy” on a crumpled bill and lob it at the staff. An act of immaturity like that basically renders a person ineligible to discuss matters at the grown-ups table.
@carlweaver, re: coffee education programs –
Murky has staged public cuppings and “learn to make espresso at home” classes in the past. Tastings are also held regularly at Big Bear Cafe and occasionally at the Counter Culture office in Adams Morgan (both Murky and Big Bear buy their beans from Counter Culture).
Any of these may be interesting to the individual who wishes to learn more about the nuances of good coffee vs. Starbucks/Caribou/etc swill.
(sorry for the second comment post)
I think this speaks to a fundamental flaw in fancy-coffee shop menus: the markup on the “components” you pay for is so obscene as to drive people to e.g. this “ghetto latte” that started the no-iced-espresso policy in the first place. Why, for the love of God, would a shot of espresso be less than a dollar, but two or three shots of espresso plus a dime’s worth of milk be five bucks? Because they can get away with it.
Having read both first-hand accounts, I frankly love both these guys. They both have a valid argument, in my view, and I don’t think either acted unreasonably (at least according to current Internet standards for hyperbole). I think if Nick wants to see a good resolution, the thing to do is fix the pricing to remove the incentive to game the system.
There is never an excuse to launch into a profanity laced tirade against a service employee. Simple as that. None of the other noise here matters.
I don’t think there’s any excuse for a business owner to respond to a jokey blog post about espresso and customer service with dickpunch threats, either. I didn’t think I’d have this much fun watching Murky Coffee self-destruct, but Nick has not disappointed.
Man, I’m lucky I drink Pepsi instead of coffee… :-P
@ DailCaveat
..But its then ok for the *owner of the store* to “launch into a profanity laced tirade” directed back at the customer? Read up the comment thread or go to murky’s website, if you’re not getting what I’m talking about.
This whole situation is hilarious. The shop employee was being extremely rude and condescending to the customer, and rather than being mature, The customer chose to respond in kind… to which the owner responded with even *more* immaturity.
This is directed at Nick, and anyone who supports his views or his shop on this thread.
In any service industry you expect customers to be rude. It just happens. I’ve been there, I’ve done that. The customer, in a service industry, is pretty much always right. Do I feel sorry for people who have to deal with bad customers? Yes, that’s why I tip well… but those people still have a job to do and that job doesn’t include being a condescending prick. In no circumstance should a store owner ever back up his bad employees… he should be apologizing for their behavior. Finally..threats of violence towards customers on a public blog post… by the owner… really? If you’re going to pull a stunt like that over one irate customer, you don’t have what it takes to run a coffee shop or pretty much any other service-based business.
So if someone orders one of Murky’s fancy estate coffees, do they pitch a fit if said customer then sullies the brew with cream and/or sugar? If they want to be consistent, they probably should.