Macrina Bakery + Cafe
Amazing, but marred by a nearly fatal
flaw
The line out the door (which is nearly constant
during business hours) is emblematic of two things. First, the pastries and
breads are simply amazing. Secondly, the counter staff sucks. Well, sucks is a
bit of an overstatement. Some of them can be outright rude, but some are
hampered by the weird setup of their retail area. The pastries are in a display
case and on shelves where there is only room for one person. This means that
there are often two or three people standing behind the counter doing nothing,
while one is filling the order of someone in line. This is sometimes really
frustrating for you as a customer because this place tends to attract people who
will just stand there gawking at the items for sale, unable to make up their
minds even though they have been standing next to that same counter for 10
minutes waiting. On multiple occasions, I have stopped by the shop feeling lucky
that there was only one or two people in line and still spent 15 minutes waiting
to order my muffin because the person in front of me wanted to know the
ingredients of each thing in the case and what each tasted like and then wanted
to pay by check. This is why many coffee places now have two cash registers, so
that people like me who just want a large drip don't have to wait behind the
person ordering 12 different, complicated, drinks for their entire office.
Macrina probably won't bother to make a change like this because they don't have
to. Their food is good enough that even I (who hates lines) will wait for it,
but they would be even more amazing if they could solve their customer service
issues.
Posted: Mon - August 1, 2005 at 09:41 AM
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