Beans of Black gold
Do they think no-one notices? And who gave them the idea in the first place?
The practice of some café’s charging extra for a takeaway coffee is such a barefaced ripoff it instantly demolishes any hard earned good will quicker than… instant coffee.
Most café owners will tell you that the cost of seating a customer, serving their table, cleaning up after them and washing crockery is a much pricier alternative than simply handing them a paper cup.
But for some establishments in Wanaka, Dunedin and the more recent and remote caffeine outposts in Roxburgh and Invercargill, the takeout paper cup is a premium product ‘attracting’ – to use the ubiquitous term favoured by finance and telecommunication companies – an additional surcharge to ratchet the price up even further.
Bring the subject up with business owners and you get a rather chilly response – especially with other customers present.
One hippy outfit even referred to the ‘cost to the environment’ which presented the unlikely scenario of staff earnestly adding up the planet tax at the end of the day to send off to their cause du jour.
Has the ‘upsell’ concept been imbedded by the espresso machines supplier as a nice little earner when they sign up a new business onto the caffeine gravy train?
Contrast this with busy inner city café’s in places like Sydney where a takeaway is often 50 cents less than a seated serving.
Fair business practice vs short term gain? Real service vs ripoff.
