Sun, 13 Nov 2005
Hey Sunny,
I was hanging out at one of your stores today, the one at Devonshire and Reseda
in Northridge. You really need to get your franchisees to get their shops in
order. While overall, you guys make good coffee, much too often, I get a
terrible one. It's quite a crapshoot to get a coffee at one of your stores.
There's simply no consistency in the coffees made at The Coffee Bean.
While on a good day, your lattes are quite delicious, I'd estimate that about
10% of the time, I get a terrible coffee. Part of problem seems to be
under-trained staff. Different baristas in the same store often make coffees
differently. The first iced latte that I sent back today was clearly
disproportioned, lacking the nice milky tone; it looked like coffee-water.
Nonetheless, I drank some of the bitter swill and added some more milk. Alas,
it still tasted quite bad.
I had the latte remade, and while the second looked right, it still tasted
poorly. Hoping that perhaps someone spilled some dish water into the ice
maker, I had it replaced with a hot latte. Unfortunately, the hot one was not
much better. I did burn my tongue a bit on it which helped keep my taste buds
from revolting.
I suggest that you visit the shops and make sure that they're cleaning out the
espresso machines regularly. Or perhaps they are using low-grade coffee beans
in order to widen the narrow profit margins on $3 cups of coffee. Please let
me know what your research turns up and when it's safe to return to Coffee Bean
stores.
Thanks,
Christian
business | Permanent Link
