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| - I really like this spot to drink coffee because you can sit outside, see the water, enjoy the lake breeze and be protected from the elements. Usually things are super cheerful and easy-going here, but I just waited for 20 minutes in line for a cup of black coffee.
I really, really don't like to diss places for a one-off less-than-stellar service moment - it happens, we've all been there - but I was kind of dumbfounded today, so:
There were only two people working, one one the cash and one preparing, and it was busy, so I was willing to cut these servers some serious slack. When both of them started taking forever helping one customer decide what to have, which involved a breakdown of what that customer had tried before, what ingredients they like, sweetness levels, etc., I tried to appreciate the high level of attention paid to the experience of that customer. But then I started losing my patience because I noticed that that degree of attention to one customer produced a very noticeable lack of service to myself and the other customers in the ever-growing line-up. Still, everyone was very pleasant, so what's a few minutes, and then a few more.
I finally made it to the front just as 2 MORE servers came out from the back - I was like fuuuuck, finally. Just starting their shift? Or taking breaks at the same time even though it was so busy up here? They each did some punching on the registers, then proceeded to chat with the original servers and wander here and there instead of focusing directly on whittling down the line-up (I was still at the front of the line and still hadn't ordered). Then ANOTHER guy came from the back (clown car back there ?) and it was just painful at this point to watch the 5 employees mill about chatting ... in the end my order was taken by one of the original servers.
Incredibly inefficient for a place with 5 people on staff at once. Again, maybe this was a fluke and this was a shift changeover. If not, some tweaking of the work flow might be in order.
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