Drive Through Coffee or Make At Home?
I'm always amazed, astounded really, when I drive past a coffee joint with a drive through and see dozens of cars lines up, idling, waiting to place or pick up their order. Of course largely I'm speaking of Starbucks, the heavyweight champion of the world as far as coffee purveyors with drive through windows.
Now don't get me wrong, I do not begrudge Starbucks success, they were likely inspired in their founding by my great aunts' Ella And Nora's Coffee Tea and Spice store in Pikes Place in the 1950's. My father worked for my aunts as well for a time. Interestingly the first Starbucks, also in Pikes Place, had coffee, tea, spices, also sold in bulk.
Maybe it is due to the 10+ years I lived in Claremont, California, and the fact that up until I moved away drive thrus of all kinds were banned in order to reduce smog, urban craziness, unsightly messiness, what have you. Drive through Mc Donalds? Next city over. Claremont had other rules too in order to raise the bar and control the city, such as no overnight street parking, but that is a blog post for another blog on another day.
Back to my coffee amazement.
So, one gets out of bed, what, 15, 20 minutes earlier to go to work so that they can trundle down the road half asleep enroute in order to procure life enhancing, soul altering liquid refreshment? Some park and walk in to order (I'm guessing these are the complicated orders that one does not trust speaking into a microphone), while others idle their vehicles burning fuel, watching their range drop and drop. Some shut their cars off (not the Prius drivers though, no fuel being wasted there) and restart them to move through the queue, adding strain to their starters and batteries.
Finally they arrive at the pick up window, pay what, 5, 6 dollars for a cuppa specialized joe, depart the concrete lane and now begin their trek to the workplace, imbibing black liquid life, feeling the warmth and caffeine radiate through their being. Decaf coffee junkies who do this, you're weird.
Arriving at work you march on in, ready to take on the day with verve and resolve.
But wait, let's think about this for a moment.
Why do you do this? You lose precious sleep, leave early, waste fuel, pay a lot more than you have to (even for a regular cup or regular old coffee), and waste time. That there is the worst of it to me. I hate having my time stolen. One can make more money, but one cannot make more time.
Allow me to expand on this.
I make coffee at home for about 64¢ a pot. there are about 5 'me' sized cups in a pot off coffee, so an average cup is about 12¢ each. If you add sugar and/or creamer, which I sometimes do, the cost maybe goes up 2 cents.
I prep my coffee the night before, the brewer turns on automatically about 5 minutes before I get out of bed, I grab that first cup of hot strong coffee right off, and my day begins. The remaining coffee I sometimes pour into my Stanley thermos for later in the weekday, where it stays hot and delightful.
OR I could head down the way for a $5 cup of coffee.
Now the specialty coffees and the eats these places have are another thing altogether. If I want an Egg Nog Latte, or God forbid a Pumpkin spice concoction, or a quicj nosh with my joe, it's off the the costly coffee joint, hands down.
So why do people do this? Over pay, wait long waits, etcetera etcetera?
Maybe because they are supreme rulers of the universe? Or maybe it could be because they are caffeine addicts, not that there is anything wrong woth that.
See the chart below.
BTW, want to make a coffee addict grin to the point off their face cracking and falling off? Give them a 100 dollar coffee gift card. It's like cake to a fat kid.
See this chart from http://www.businessinsider.com/how-much-caffeine-is-in-starbucks-red-bull-coke-2016-3
