Only in Dallas would this be considered a 4 out of 5 star coffee shop. Starbucks coffee by any other name is still a Starbucks, and since that's what Dallas knows, it's what Drip! provides. Whether it's locally roasted or not is irrelevant - good coffee is good, bad coffee is bad. The end.
Sure, we can talk about the atmosphere: it's shit. Horribly rigid and uninviting. The staff are standoffish and, in my case, combative. What did I do to deserve such scorn? Story time!
My friend has been nagging me to go to Drip! for a while. Nagging in the good way as he is a chef and has never steered me wrong before. So, after grabbing some lovely Al's pizza we head to Drip! to indulge in lovely cappuccinos. Why cappuccinos from a place called "Drip!"? Because I'm a masochist, that's why. My chef friend orders a decaf drip, my wife orders a chai latte and my other friend and I both get cappuccinos. This is where the second error occurs. My first was noticing that they use the same machines as Starbucks - which auto-grind, tamp and pull your espresso - the crappiest ones in the entire business. High quality my ass.
The 1000-yard-stare sporting stoner ass behind the counter gets my friend's order wrong. How can you confuse "small" with "medium"? You smoke too much pot on the job, that's how. All right. So, our "cappuccinos" come out - I use quotes because it was just about the farthest thing from a cappuccino as it gets, as if the cappuccinos parents were cousins and they came out just a bit sad and wrong and not the good kind of wrong - and they were all foam. Quite literally an inch and a half or more of foam. This is NOT A CAPPUCCINO. The underlying espresso had NONE OF THE TEXTURE of a cappuccino nor any of the bittersweet aroma or taste of the genuine article. The product of damaged goods.
I mull over telling the staff about this, but seeing as how this was the second cappuccino I've had from a locally owned shop in Dallas (out of 12) that was made like this (the other was at another yuppie favorite, White Rock Coffee, who advertise themselves in the exact same fashion - "locally roasted quality coffee!") I decided to push on and voice my discontent.
I walk up to Jeff Spicoli. "That machine's an auto-grind and tamper isn't it?"
I am faced with a blank stare. The horror! Good God, he must be thinking, a customer's asking me questions and my pot-addled mind no longer has the processing power required to coherently function as a human being! "Wha?" he asks.
"That espresso machine. It auto-grinds, tamps and pulls the coffee, right?" I ask.
"Yeah." he mumbles, perhaps imagining that I am a giant doobie for him to take out back and smoke and shirk his responsibilities to his "job".
"Well, I have to tell you that that was one of the worst cappuccinos I've ever had. I literally took two sips and then threw it out." I say.
INSERT A HORRIFICALLY LONG PAUSE HERE and then... he goes on the offensive. "Oh yeah, really? Coffee is subjective, man. And we're one of the most highly rated in the city and we've won TONS of awards." (A quick search of Google and the Observer shows this to be a lie, but I won't say he's lying because this one website I found slathered TONS of praise onto Drip! coffee. Do you know what it was? OHMYGODYOU'LLNEVERBELIVEIT, it was... dripcoffeeco.com! Do you think they're related?)
This pissed me off, and I HATE pulling the "I'm in the industry!" card. Oh well! "Look, buddy, I'm a barista for (redacted - one of the most renowned coffee companies in America, the company which brought true artisan coffee roasting to the US and which taught Starbucks founders how to roast coffee), so we can go back and forth all day long about how to make a cappuccino, but this isn't it."
"Well what do you want me to do about it?" Jeff Spicoli replies, probably fantasizing about teenaged girls.
"I know it's unheard of in this industry, but I'd like a refund." At this point two velociraptors came out, one from the kitchen and the other from the front door. I thought for sure I was done for but suddenly a Tyrannosaurus Rex lurched through the roof and ate them, saving my life as the "When Dinosaurs Roamed The Earth" banner fell from the ceiling. Oh wait, no, that didn't really happen, but I imagine it was what was going through the pothead's mind as he stared off into space. Perhaps he was planning to go for my neck? I've seen Reefer Madness, I know what goes on in their brains!
"I can give you a free coffee card and that's it." he dribbles out after what felt like an Avatar-length pause.
"Sure, fine, whatever." He hands it to me and I give it to my friend the chef. "Here, you can have this, I won't be using it."
As I'm walking out I'm almost run over by a braindead yuppie piloting the 767 of strollers, which is a fitting close to this review because that's exactly the type of clientele Drip! is aiming for.
One finger out of five. Guess which? read more