Life Behind a Bar

So my husband and I own a coffee shop.  I've worked there for 10 years (my longest job ever!) and my husband has worked along side me for the last 5.  During my college years at Mankato State University, if you asked me if I was going to own a coffee shop, I would have told you no way!  I thought I was going to be a suit walking around a shiny office, making the big bucks and living the American dream.  Boy was I wrong.  Don't get me wrong, I love my husband enormously and my job (even when the alarm in the morning seems to go off 5 minutes after I hit my pillow), but at 30 it would be nice to get a paycheck.  Oh well, such is life.  What I have now you can't buy, but sometimes, I just want to write about it!

About this Post, Life Behind a Bar, I think it would be wrong to write about my customers without their approval, so that's not what this post is about.  I love them dearly.  They are who our coffee shop has become, they are a part of my family (hell, half of my wedding guests were from the shop), and I think it is a violation of being a Barista to dish the dirt on them.  What I am going to write about is Tim and my experiences behind the bar with the non-regulars of our shop.  I seriously think Obama could solve the worlds problems if he could just stand behind the counter of a coffee bar, ask the customer what they thought of the world, and listened.  By the final stir of a Raspberry Mocha, he could get an ear full.  Its amazing what you can transfer to another person in those few minutes waiting for your coffee.

So, about Tim and I behind the bar...Here's a story for you....

Every Saturday and Sunday morning we get a group of about 5-7 regulars first thing in the morning, even before we open for business.  They know my rule, they can come in, but they have to sit patiently until all the baking is done before I will crack open the espresso machine.  They have been a part of the shop for as long as I can remember, and they are great to get my mind going in the morning or just to get things off my chest.  Love them!  Anyway, they stay for about an hour and on this particular day, things were pretty interesting for us. 

Our coffee shop is in downtown Stillwater and we often call it "the fishbowl" because of the huge bank of windows overlooking a bar parking lot and the St. Croix River.  On this particular day, about 10 cars were parked out front from the night before, and they were completely covered in snow.  One thing great about those windows, is the morning "walk of shames".  I know a lot of people get drunk and are responsible, taking a cab and leaving their cars parked downtown, but they are unfortunately the minority.  Well, at about 7:30 am, one of the regulars pointed out a truck pulling into the parking lot and a tiny little thing jumping out with no morning kiss, just an awkward hug from across the seat. The whole time we even felt awkward for witnessing this one. 

Well, the girl was dressed in her tiny little bar outfit, it was freezing out, AND her windshield was covered with snow and ice.  Now as this was all going on, my regulars are giving me the play by play while I'm baking my scones.  All of a sudden I hear one of my ladies yelling at the window.  She was witnessing the gentleman in the truck driving off without helping his lady friend out and the girl was trying to scrape her windshield with an object, not a scraper, but something from the backseat of her car.  My regular was going nuts!!!  She was so mad that he would leave her without helping her out one last time after taking her home the night before.  Then the greatest thing happened and I was fortunate to be there to witness it.  The guy in the truck finally stopped pulling away and awkwardly got out of his truck trying to help her out.  Unfortunately he didn't have a scrapper either. 

At this time, my customer took matters into her own hands.  I thought I was going to die laughing.  She gets up from her chair, marches out to her car, grabs her scraper, and hands it to the gentleman.  SERIOUSLY!!!  He turned a hundred shades of red and not because it was too cold out there.  He realized we were watching the whole thing unfold from our shop.  Once he got the scraper, he cleaned off her front window (he did forget to scrape the rest, but I think they were both mortified by our knowledge of their secret), returned the scraper to the hood of my customers car, and then turned around and waved goodbye to us.  I think we laughed for a good 10 minutes.

Moral of the story...we don't care what you do in your private life AT ALL, just be a gentleman and help a girl out, you never know who's watching!