Coffee and Marketing

I might have to reassess my marketing skills with regard to the Coffee House. Yesterday a young lady came into the shop and asked how the wifi worked. I told her that once she became a customer I would give her the password and she was in business. An hour later she settled her account and gave me a $2 tip (nice). She then told me that she wished that she had known that we were here the previous day as she had driven the 30 miles to Bigtown looking for wireless. She eventually found herself in a well-known coffee chain store that charged an exorbitant amount for a coffee plus, and get this, $10 for the use of the Internet. After she left I considered her $1.25 for the coffee (cogs $0.50) and $2 tip (of which the IRS will get 40%, natch) and wondered if I really did have my finger on the pulse. Still it doesn’t pay to be too greedy, as those painted Jezebels at Smalltown’s library have already undercut us all by offering free Internet.

Speaking of marketing I think that I may have stumbled upon a new business model for the Coffee House. You see when it rains here in Smalltown people don’t fancy walking the hill for lunch, but they will telephone in a to go order. Most of the government employees seem to use our trusty trustee to fetch their lunches so they don’t even have to get wet. Actually this trustee business puzzles me, you see he has been in business just as long as I have. This means that his crime must have been relatively severe to warrant such a long sentence and yet minor enough that he can walk the streets of Smalltown with pockets full of other people’s money. I would guess hog humping or wife beating but I don’t think that either of these are actually illegal in Kissbotty County. Now with telephone orders I can pace them according to how busy the boss is. So if she is lounging around then the lunch will be ready in 5. Conversely if she is busy then “your lunch will be ready for collection in 30”. This means that we get a nice low stress throughput of clientele. It also means that if the Boss has bothered me I can wait until she is really snowed under and then tell the Circuit Court that 12 jury lunches will be ready in 5 and to send the trustee down now.
Anyhow the point is that I am seriously thinking of telephone orders only, so you come into the shop decide what you want and then use your cell phone to call it in. I will see how fast the Boss’s arms are flapping and give you an eta on your eats. The only disadvantages that I can see are that a) we will get through a lot of to go boxes and b) no-one seems to tip on carryouts. However I think that we can overcome this with what I call a non-discretionary gratuity donation (my man at the IRS says that, unlike tips, donations are tax exempt). So bring your cell phones and dig deep people, we need to make this work, I have a wireless network to support.