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<\/a>“I’ll have a half double decaffeinated half-caf, with a twist of lemon.”\u00a0 Those of you who enjoy a good comedy will recognize that line from the 1991 movie,\u00a0<\/strong>L.A. Story<\/strong>. \u00a0<\/em>The line was uttered by Steve Martin’s character, Harris, with the deadpan delivery that only Martin can pull off.\u00a0 At the time that coffee ordering scene was meant to depict how pretentious coffee drinking<\/strong> had become.\u00a0 We laughed and laughed at how ridiculous people could be about coffee.\u00a0 Oh how innocent we were then.\u00a0 Last week The Telegraph<\/em> reported that Starbucks boasts that they now offer 87,000 different drink combinations.\u00a0 Thanks to the “secret menu”<\/strong> underground, people have come up with all sorts of ways to bugger up a good cup of coffee.\u00a0 I know this because I spent most of the summer standing in line<\/strong> behind the person who was trying to come up with drink #87,001.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Mr. Starbucks:\u00a0 you are welcome to use my idea any time.\u00a0 Just consider it my contribution to the “drips” of the world.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By Suzanne Sparrow Watson “I’ll have a half double decaffeinated half-caf, with a twist of lemon.”\u00a0 Those of you who enjoy a good comedy will recognize that line from the 1991 movie,\u00a0L.A. Story. \u00a0The line was uttered by Steve Martin’s … read more![\"\"](\"https:\/\/fromabirdseyeview.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/2017-09-29-09.07.25-e1507389600578-225x300.jpg\")
<\/a>As you regular readers know, we travel a lot during the summer months and I am embarrassed to admit that we often schedule our departure times<\/strong> based on when the local Starbucks opens.\u00a0 “Opens at 5 a.m.,” my husband will report.\u00a0 Which means that I set the alarm for o’dark thirty and we are cruising through<\/strong> the drive-through<\/strong> window at exactly 5.\u00a0 The advantage really does go to the early bird in these cases because most people who are crazy enough to be up at that hour just want a plain, strong cup of coffee.\u00a0 If Starbucks offered to mainline caffeine<\/strong> at that hour I think they get blockbuster results.\u00a0 The problem with Starbucks occurs later in the day when the Steve Martins of the world arise.\u00a0 If we venture into a Starbucks between 8-10 a.m. we are invariably met with a long line<\/strong> of people who are seemingly stumped by all of their choices.\u00a0 The photo (right) was taken in Sun Valley a couple of weeks ago.\u00a0 I was the 9th person in line at 9 a.m.\u00a0 By the looks and age of the people in front of me I assumed I was in the company of fellow “plain drip” drinkers.\u00a0 That’s what I get by categorizing people by age.\u00a0 Unfortunately I was behind people ordering the new maple drink<\/strong>, which was doubly troublesome because the baristas weren’t quite sure how to make it.\u00a0 So I stood in line for more than 15 minutes just to get two cups of dark roast drip<\/strong>.\u00a0 I was ready to leap over the counter and pour the darn stuff myself.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/fromabirdseyeview.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/Starbucks-SF-300x193.jpg\")
<\/a>Each time I find myself in this situation I harken back to my working days in San Francisco<\/strong>.\u00a0 In the 1990’s Starbucks opened a location in the basement of the Bank of America tower.\u00a0 Directly across the hallway was a Max’s Diner, which featured delectable baked goods and a self-serve coffee station.\u00a0 The beauty of getting coffee there was you could pour your own coffee and throw the required payment into a jar and walk out.\u00a0 They operated totally on the honor system.\u00a0 The managers at Starbucks soon realized that they would lose the plain coffee drinkers like me who just wanted a fast cup of coffee.\u00a0 Their solution was to establish two lines for coffee<\/strong>: one for just a plain cuppa joe and the other for people who order foo foo drinks.\u00a0 It was a perfect system.\u00a0 Unfortunately I have not seen this replicated in any other location.\u00a0 And with 87,000 drinks available the lines are often filled with confused people who, to my caffeine-addicted self, seem decidedly clueless to the notion that real coffee<\/strong> does not include whipped cream, soy, caramel sauce, coconut water or any of the hundreds of other additives available.\u00a0 So while I was waiting in that line at Sun Valley I came up with a great idea – why not have a high-end coffee machine<\/strong> that could be self-serve?\u00a0 One could use either a credit card or the Starbucks app to access it.\u00a0 It could grind fresh coffee (maybe two choices of blend) and then dispense it into a cup.\u00a0 I’m sure Starbucks could pay a vending machine company to come up with something appropriately fancy looking so that even Steve Martin would be proud to obtain his coffee from it.\u00a0 It would save time, labor and money.<\/p>\n