Tag Archives: barista

In Brevity: Starbucks?! Starfucks!!

brevity-isThis week Starbucks announced changes to their rewards program. What does it mean?

Don’t worry. I’m here to break it down brevity-style. No, not breve. Starbucks “baristas” don’t know that word.

Why the change? According to Starbucks Newsroom official website it was done “based on the #1 customer request” to have more stars. In other words, you asked for this. Look what you made us do!

In the way back I’d heard about Starbucks stars. I drank there when it was in my face and I wanted coffee so I enthusiastically figured, “What the hell?” I signed up and gave it a try.

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Coffee Tabled

coffee-drinker

The word is no. I am therefore going anyway. Give me what I want, and I’ll consider it.

My wife and I were driving around the big city on a Sunday morning. It was almost lunchtime. We had skipped breakfast.

“I could go for some kibble,” I said.

“Actually,” she replied. “Me, too.”

I was a little surprised but excited, too. We were going to eat out. But where? We took out our daggers and prodded each other, as we are often wont to do.

“Wherever you want,” I said.

“No,” she replied menacingly. “Wherever you want.”

Clink. Clink. Clink. The cold steel of our daggers danced their elegant dance.

“Let’s go to the bar you wanted to try. The one with the fried chicken.”

“The hell you say!” I turned the car around. “We’re going to that coffee shop you mentioned the other day.”

“All they got is coffee and baked goods.”

“Excellent,” I emoted, channeling Commander Kruge, the asshole Klingon from Star Trek III: The Search For Spock. “Perfect. Then that’s the way it shall be.”
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Sexpresso: What part of ho don’t you understand?

Lookin' for a little coffee on girl action, honey?

If you thought fresh coffee spilled in your lap was enough to make you hot then get a load of this! Sexpresso. Say it with me. Sexpresso. The word just rolls off the tongue.

Sexpresso has been around for a while, but apparently it’s still too new for Wikipedia. No “sexpresso” page yet. I think this would be a rewarding project. Anyone want to help me publish one? Maybe launching a new Wikipedia page is my calling for 2010. I just knew I was going to do something significant for humanity this year. 🙂

Sexpresso is the term for a coffee stand that promotes a risque motiff featuring scantily clad baristas. Up in the Pacific Northwest drive-thru coffee stands are ubiquitous. Who knew that paying $3.25 for a cup of coffee could ever become such a booming business? The competition is fierce and sexpresso is a practice that started somewhere in the vicinity of Seattle, Washington, as one way to stand out from the crowd.

My town doesn’t have any sexpresso stands, but I’ve heard that it’s just your regular overpriced coffee served up by cute young women who may or may not have some coffee making skills who want to make fast money. The “barista” pictured on the left says she makes more in tips then she ever did as a waitress working at Hooters. (Click the image for the story.) They grow up so fast, don’t they?

I wonder if I wore a bikini to work if I’d make more in tips? Hmmm. Dammit, where is the outrage about my glass ceiling!

Sexpresso is popular. Bill Geist from CBS Sunday Morning even did a story about it way back in 2007. And it seems it has gotten bigger and bolder and sassier and slutier since then.

What do you like with your coffee? A little cream and sugar. Passé! Shots of Irish creme or Kahlua? Come on! Whiskey? Get real!

These days the proper accoutrements for your morning shot of joe are a bit more sophisticated. You probably won’t be surprised to learn that these sexpresso baristas have been pushing things to the limit as the competition heats up. The oldskool approach was to lean in on the customer when handing over the beverage to provide a few choice seconds of a maximized cleavage shot, just a quick bit of harmless fun that really enlarged the size of tips. (Heh.)

These days, though, cleavage is for wimps. How about a “booty shake” with your coffee? Or a pole dance? Yes, a stripper pole in a coffee stand. Wow. Other types of behavior that have been reported at some sexpresso stands: Boobie flashes, tramp-stamped baristas licking whipped cream from each others bodies, and posing nude for pictures. Come to think of it, I do like overpriced coffee after all!

The city of Everett, Washington, and Snomish County, Washington, have already enacted laws that treat sexpresso stands as adult businesses. On Tuesday, January 19th, the City Council in Yakima, Washington, voted 4-3 instructing city lawyers to draft new regulations to treat sexpresso stands as adult businesses. (Read the story here.)

Why does there always have to be a Scrooge? 🙂