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I Miss You, Lake Lucerne Starbucks

March 16th, 2011 - Uncategorized - 26 Comments »

My neighborhood Starbucks recently closed its doors. And as many of you know, I logged an absurd amount of hours there over the last few years. I worked there. I met with people there. I went on dates there. I freaking loved that place. And it wasn’t just the fact that it used to be a house or that its back windows overlooked a beautiful lake that caused me to love it. It’s because of the people that surrounded me on a day-to-day basis.

Here are some of the people I miss the most:

Lady who took up the two comfy chairs to give sonogram lessons to reluctant trainees who felt mildly uncomfortable learning this skill in a coffee shop.

Guy who always forgot to lock the bathroom door – I’ll never forget you. Seriously. I see the image of your pantless body every third time I close my eyes.

Guy who always monopolized the only outlet in the entire store, oblivious to the fact that the other seven of us working on laptops wanted to punt your charging cell phone into the lake.

Barista who asked me every single time if I need room for cream as if my two-year streak of ordering the exact same thing would end that day.

Guy who came and played Native American pan flute concerts every Thursday afternoon. Sorry I never tipped you.

Ladies who never quite caught on to the idea that bringing their toddlers to their weekly book club was a terrible idea.

Guy who felt the need to wear two bluetooth devices as though a person that important has ever existed in all of humanity.

Guy who always stared at me and didn’t look away when we made eye contact (even though that’s what you do when you’ve been caught staring).

Lady who removed her shoes, curled up in the chair and talked at an unacceptably high volume about absolutely nothing to her girlfriends for hours at a time.

Lady who pulled two tables together so she’d have room for her computer and multiple stacks of papers while others had to try to work while kneeling against a wall, which caused them to tweak something in their lower back, which caused it to now hurt when they bend down and tie their kids’ shoes.

You know what? Scratch what I said earlier. It’s the view I’ll miss most. Definitely the view.

Is this normal coffee shop clientele? What kind of people have you encountered?

  • coasterkim

    So what happened to your Starbucks? Did it go out of business? Are you moving? What's the deal?

    • Tyler Stanton

      closed. out of business.tyler stanton

      • coasterkim

        Ah, I thought Starbucks was immune to that!

        • Tyler Stanton

          I thought so too.

  • http://www.thiscityonline.com Andrew Johnson

    My local coffee shop played "Head Crusher" by Megadeth the other morning. Definitely don't miss that.

  • http://www.pofgblog.com Joseph

    I kid you not, last week a guy walked into our local coffee shop here at 7:30 AM wearing tennis shoes, boxers, a t-shirt, baseball cap, and sunglasses. That's it. No pants. No pants at all.

    • Tyler Stanton

      Hahaha. That's amazing.
      Was he served?

      • pjcace

        It is usually no shirt, no shoes, no service. Never said anything about pants! I'll bet he was served.

      • http://www.pofgblog.com Joseph

        Yes, he was served. Bill (the owner) is hurting for business right now, so I bet he'd serve someone with less on than that if need be.

  • Tyler Stanton

    If you had it to do over again, would you have shared, or just lied and told her you were planning on leaving at that exact moment? I know what I would have done.

  • http://twitter.com/imtimrhodes @imtimrhodes

    Lake Lucerne was without a doubt one of my favorite Starbucks. My wife and I have been living overseas for the past two years and one of the things we were really looking forward to was our regular stop for coffee there. We returned home this past January, and we were crushed.

    One thing I loved about living in Moscow was there was a whole new range of coffee shop clientele. The most glaring and obvious was the newbies (or in Russian "chai-neeks"). Starbucks is somewhat new in Russia, so people are still not quite in the know. We would wait in line for ten minutes while the barista had to explain every single option available. And in the end most just went with a regular coffee.

    • Tyler Stanton

      Where do you live when in America?

      • http://twitter.com/imtimrhodes @imtimrhodes

        We were (and are back) living in Snellville. Just about five or so minutes away from the now closed Starbucks.

  • http://guidetowomen.wordpress.com/ Sharideth Smith

    matthew paul turner (jesus needs new pr guy) and i frequent the same starbucks and there's a guy there who doesn't wear pants. when he sits, he doesn't even look like he wears shorts. they disappear into his…..crevices. matthew has photographic evidence.

    my starbucks in OKC when i lived there, had a pack of about half a dozen gazillionaires who would sit in the comfy chairs, in their Stetsons and Luccheses, and make multi-million dollar handshake oil deals. it was stunning.

  • http://stevensock.blogspot.com Steven

    That was the coolest Starbucks in ATL. With the resources Starbucks had to build any type of structure they decided to reuse an old house looking over Lake Lucerne. If I remember correctly it had a music store or something like that attached to it or part of it. I had a construction project back in there off Carla Joe Dr. I passed that Starbucks almost every day for nearly 2 years. Im shocked that its gone now.

    Regarding "Starbucks People", I cant seem to get over how complicated some peoples orders are. I think the best was: Triple Venti non fat double whip cinnamon dolce split into two cups one extra hot the other hot. I'm getting ticked off just thinking about it.

    • http://www.pofgblog.com Joseph

      If I was in line behind that person I would get thrown out for punching them in the kidneys. Both of them.

      • http://180tampa.com Jerry White

        One punch extra hard, the other hard.

  • http://www.jackheimbigner.com Jack Heimbigner

    My favorite are the two ladies who talk incredibly fast, loud, and with their hands. They seem to either clear out the place or increase and the grumpy factor of everyone by ten.

  • breannemclendon

    The coffee shop I used to go to when I lived in Nashville had this charmer there! http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=5751151230…

  • http://considerthedandelion.blogspot.com/ Mandie

    At my Starbucks I was hit on by a much older than me airplane mechanic while I was reading a textbook called "Behavior Modification". That was definitely weird.

  • Kevin

    Used to run an open mic at a coffee shop. The most obnoxious participant would come in every week and on a good day would abuse the 3 song limit by making each selection an 8 minute anthem peppered with metaphores that, in order to maintain a family friendly atmosphere, tested the speed of my mute button finger. The object of scorn by his fellow musicians (myself in particular) this same person just won a grammy this year in the traditional folk genre. Bitter? Me?

  • Kerry

    The Panera is Snellville has
    -guy who holds international Skype video conversations on maximum volume
    -lady who talks on her phone so absurdly loud that I can't hear what is playing through my headphones
    -and, perhaps most fascinatingly, a group of 6 or 8 who meet regularly, complete with votes to open/close the meeting, meeting minutes, and dropping the f-bomb (also at absurdly loud volumes) all while the discussing the comic book they are collectively writing and how to best manage the website they are developing to support said comic book. I don't mean to eavesdrop, but they make it so hard not to.

  • http://twitter.com/cyb0lt @cyb0lt

    I was in one today where five high school kids stormed in and began passing a laptop around. They finally settled in on Chatroulette. I don't think they even ordered anything.

  • http://pinksheepto.blogspot.com/ Julia

    Russian couple making out to the point where I can't listen to my friend's story about her new boyfriend because I am pretty sure they are going to "go-all-the-way" right in front of us.

  • http://leadushome.wordpress.com Sarah

    I work the night shift at a coffee shop in Canada and because the folks are all Canadian, 98% are super-nice… and then there's the others.

    It's really interesting because our shop is right next to a mental hospital, a prison, two churches, a college, and a university dorm. We get all kinds.

    -One of of our regulars has the most annoying voice in the world and has a habit of changing his order in the middle of making it, so when I repeat it to confirm, he'll say "NO! You're WRONG! Start over!" Oookay… I make plans to not be where he is when he comes in.

    People can be very rude before they get their morning coffee, but it's not all bad.

    -Another regular (who I love dearly) is an older gentleman with an eyepatch. He switches which eye the patch is over every couple of days. Awesome. :D

    -Another of my favorite regulars is another older gentleman named Harold. He's pretty lonely, so he'll often wind up talking to me, any other employee, or if no one is listening, himself. Very nice guy.

    -On St. Patrick's Day, we had a huge crowd of drunk kids come through… it was a very interesting night, but the best conversation I had with a customer went like this:
    Me: "So you wanted X, Y, Z, and also a cookie?"
    (Very) Plastered Kid: Yeah!! WOW! You reMEMBERED all that?! You're AMAZING!!! :D
    Friend: No, she works here, and you're drunk. :)

  • http://twitter.com/sadlierka @sadlierka

    I don't think I really know the people that are always at my usual Starbucks, most of them are tourists or college students but I can definitely describe to you at least one of the staff that work there:

    -the barista that is willing to jump over the counter, run out the door and in the car window of a friend's just for a break.

    That was a crazy sight when I saw them do it. I had just been talking to them for a min about something a minute prior and sat down and then I saw them jump, run, and dive into a car window. It drew attention in the whole coffee shop. Now everytime I see them I wonder if they are going to do it again.