With my mind nagging me for its mid morning caffeine shot, I made my way to The Coffee Club in…read moreGungahlin. Stepping into the store, it reminded me of your stereotypical Coffee Club -- dark, sensual, and inviting. I thought everything was great, until I came up to the registers to order my coffee.
It may be a nitpick of me to mention this but the service was cold, like ice coffee cold. With a stone cold face, the person asked me what I would like to order. As per usual, I opted for a lactose free latte. He put through the order and prompted me to pay for my item. This is where the second problem arose.
"It'll be $6.10." He said. Six dollars and ten cents. For a lactose free latte? Now, I know it is not his responsibility to dictate the price of my beverage, but this pricing is borderline offensive. How could a coffee club, with its -- I'm assuming -- successful franchise charge $6.10 for a basic latte? There was nothing specIal about the cup I got. In addition, I didn't choose to be heavily lactose sensitive, and so why must I pay significantly more than a person who have the enzymes to properly process lactose? I'm uncertain.
This kind of experience is the kind of experience which makes me want to support properly-minded small business who understand that coffee is exactly that, coffee. Yes, I know it is also a bit of a social norm to treat coffee as a 'specialty', but in this particular instance this coffee was far from specialty. If you're wanting to satisfy your craving for coffee, go elsewhere. I believe I saw 3 other small coffee booths around this coffee club. If I didn't have work to do and needed a place to sit and sip, I would've opted to support the smaller, more reasonable, coffee cafes.
