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| - Edited to add: GOOD THEY CLOSED. NO SURPRISE!
I would like to add to Michael D's comment, much of which echoes my experience with Next.
Recently I went there during a bellydance performance. The hours are clearly posted as being open until 10pm. I showed up around 9:45pm; the place had at least two dozen people in it watching bellydance, as well as a few tables where folks were finishing eating. A reasonable person would assume they were still open for business, given all of this, yes? Well, silly me. THE DOOR WAS LOCKED. A customer opened the door and let me in.
Then I walked up to the counter, foolishly thinking that someone would sell me a coffee or at least have the courtesy to tell me that they were not serving any longer. I stood there like an idiot for 3 full minutes while about the entire staff walked right by me and avoided making eye contact. RUFKM? Wow. There was also a woman whom I assumed to be either the owner or the manager, judging by the way she was dressed, her imperious attitude and utter refusal to make eye contact with any of us or even say a goddamned word of greeting to myself or anybody. It was like it was a huge imposition on her that anybody was still there.
I also let in two other people about five minutes after I showed up (9:50pm). They also wanted coffee and since nobody at Next Coffee could be bothered to greet those horrible, pain-in-the-ass customers who had the temerity to show up before closing time without giving prior notice to the staff, it was up to me to tell them that the rude, jerkface staff not only was not going to sell them squat even though it was 10 minutes shy of their posted closing time, they wouldn't even have the courtesy to say, 'sorry, no service now'.
Shortly after 10pm, there was another woman who was there who wanted to buy something to eat. They have plenty of pre-packaged, ready to go food there. All it would have taken is one person with the initiative to take her $7 or $8 and hand her the food. Nobody had to break out the bread or meat or whatever which had been put away. But, of course, nobody could be bothered to take her money and it would have been a huge imposition to mess with cash after they put away the cash drawer. I'm sure it would have been WAY too much to expect them to sell her the food and just put the money aside and ring it up the next day.
The people at Next Coffee just didn't give a damn.
I run my own business, and I have also worked in food service. I have never, ever, EVER run across a restaurant owner who would lock the doors 15 minutes or more prior to the posted closing time, and refuse to serve any food or drink when there are still over two dozen people in the restaurant, several of whom were willing to buy more coffee and food. In fact, I am positive that it would be a firing offense at any of the restaurants I worked at, to act like this.
This particular evening, the rude people at Next gave up, easily, $20 of business and possibly more, because I'm not counting the over two dozen people still milling around when the performance ended, who might have wanted to pick up something for the road (in fact, I was hungry and might even have bought some of their prepared food for the road).
In fact, most of the restauranteurs I have worked for would gladly take your money and serve you something that's take-and-go, if you showed up even 10 minutes after closing. Because they were good businesspeople and they gave a damn about the customers and about making money, unlike the people running Next who seem to have more important things to do than, you know, their jobs.
$20 may not sound like much, but multiply that by however many nights a month they pull this crap, that's a few hundred bucks a month and a few thousand dollars a year. That's the kind of money that makes a difference between staying afloat or not, sometimes. Not to mention the ill will this kind of rude and clueless behavior creates, which leads to who knows how many lost sales in the future.
Maybe Next is doing so well that they can afford to treat customers like sh~t and stay afloat. If so, good for them. Must be nice to be able to get by with such arrogant behavior in this economy. I wish I could give them negative bazillion stars.
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