10 WTF Coffeeshop moments (Part 1)

10. The ice storm of 2002.  The Triangle completely came to a stand still while everything was frozen and covered in ice. This was before Bean Traders expanded. This was also close to when South Point Mall opened. Luckily BT and the mall are on the same power grid. We got electricity restored around lunch time. In 10 years this was the most crowded I've ever seen the shop. People were sitting and laying anywhere and everywhere they could find space. They were just glad to be somewhere warm with power.  Almost all of Durham had lost power due to frozen power lines.  It felt like most of South Durham was trying to enter our business. The wait time to get a specialty drink from the bar was a solid 45-55 minutes. We had around twenty-thirty beverages in the que at any given moment and our brewers actually shut down because of the volume.

To top it all off my mother-in-law came to visit the day the power went out and we did not get power back until the day after she left.  And since no one could get to work for 3 of those days...my wife, mother-in- law, and I worked everyday @ BT then went home and froze in the dark just to get up and repeat. This is a WTF because that is what my mother-in-law was thinking about her trip to see us.

9. Four words: Bird in the store! On particularly nice afternoons I like to prop open the front door to enjoy the fresh air and sunshine. Doing this immediately puts everyone at risk for a fly by. Can you imagine the look on the person's face who is studying from a text book beneath a spacious window on a glorious spring day at BT when all of the sudden a bird flies into the shop then into the window trying to get out and lands smack dab in the center of the text they are reading?  I don't have to imagine. I can just remember.

8. We give customers a discount on drip coffee who bring their own mug to the shop.  I was so shocked one day when I saw a regular syphoning his travel mug into additional travel mugs he and his wife were hiding below the bar.  I was on the telephone in the kitchen and walked out to see this activity going on.  After confirming with the barista they had only paid for one cup I confronted them at their vehicle out front. The husband returned to the shop and paid for additional cups of coffee.

7. Two regular customers (unrelated) have attempted murder. One of them was successful. They are both in jail now.  Strangely, the day the former reported his wife missing to the police, he also loaded up on French Roast at Bean Traders and told us his wife was missing. He asked us to hang a flyer on her behalf.  Weird! Creepy!  I was the only person working.

6. We used to roast on-site at Bean Traders. When you roast coffee you take on the risk of a having a roaster fire...and we did.  During our fire there was a customer who was completely absorbed in their cell phone call- so much so they didn't notice the smoke billowing all around them filling the shop and flooding out the open front door, nor all the other folks evacuating the store, nor the fire truck sirens getting really close.  I think a fire fighter actually had to ask her to leave the shop in the end.