We Pay Our Rent By Buying Coffee 442
Wired is running a story on Delicious Monster, a startup Mac software company whose main office is a Seattle coffee shop. Hope they're drinking decaf.
Keep up the good work! But please don't ask me to help.
Decaf? (Score:5, Funny)
No... It's actually assembly. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:No... It's actually assembly. (Score:2)
Re:Decaf? (Score:5, Funny)
Also fascinating: (Score:3, Funny)
Delicious Library (Score:5, Interesting)
Wow, I must have contributed to some of that.
Delicious Library is cool, if a little bit slow. But it's still new, so that's not surprising. The attention to detail is really amazing. When you add artwork to a catalog item, the application adds a screen to the item image to make it look like it's in a DVD case, or the cover of a book. If you say it's a hard cover or soft cover book, the size of the book changes, too. I wrote a nearly pointless review [gadgetmadness.com] of it for Gadget Madness.
Scanning in your books, DVDs, games, or whatever into the system is actually a kind of fun. It's one of those Mac OS X applications that when you show someone who doesn't have a Mac, they get that comically jealous look on their face.
Re:Delicious Library (Score:2)
Re:Delicious Library (Score:4, Interesting)
I don't see any way that DVD Profiler can track your books, CD and games either, or use a webcam to scan product codes, or any mention of being able to find others with similar tastes (coming in the next release of Delicious Library).
On the positive side, DVD Profiler is cheaper. Grats to you.
Re:Delicious Library (Score:5, Funny)
> queen of England...
Greetings, your majesty!
I don't know these guys, and I've never seen them in a coffee shop. I don't work in the software industry.
I paid full price for the software application over Christmas (to try to find some additional use for my iSight [apple.com]). So, no astroturfing here.
I mean, no astroturfing, your grace.
Re:Delicious Library (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Delicious Library (Score:3, Informative)
'Your grace', is reserved for higher levels of religion, like witches.
Of course, if you are quite friendly with the Queen, you may call her 'your maj'.
Re:Delicious Library (Score:5, Informative)
Don't mean to burst your bubble, but, next time you are in IMDB, scroll to the very bottom of the page and read what it says.
- Tony
Re:Delicious Library (Score:3, Insightful)
Heh. That FireFox browser really sucks!
Re:Delicious Library (Score:2)
Amen, brother. For your own good, stay away from ALL of that open-source crap [apple.com]!
Hey, look, your idiocy is showing.
Decentralisation (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Decentralisation (Score:5, Interesting)
Don't you worry, as soon as they have serious money in the bank, they'll feel compelled to set up shop in a regular office building, with a flashy street sign, they'll start wearing suits, and they'll start hiring overhead such as "managers", "VP of sales" or "HR manager".
And every now and then, they'll gather up in the meeting room to reminisce "how cool and crazy we were in the beginning, dude".
That's how every start-up I worked for ended up turning into when they had the chance to develop into something...
Re:Decentralisation (Score:5, Insightful)
> bank, they'll feel compelled to set up shop in a regular office
Maybe. But I read on Think Secret [thinksecret.com] that Delicious Monster was started by some guys who left the behemoth software conglomerate Omni Group [omnigroup.com]:
So it sounds like they left a small company to put together an even smaller company.
I admit, I just use their software. I know none of these guys and I've never worked for their companies, but it doesn't sound like either company is running to put on the white shirt and tie just yet.
Re:Decentralisation (Score:3, Interesting)
Mid life crisis, huh?
I'd much rather run a successful small company than have a "window office". But I'm obviously too young and stupid to know what I REALLY want.
Re:Decentralisation (Score:5, Insightful)
I was the president of Omni Group for about 10 years, and I founded it, and I still am the largest shareholder.
> When they enter middle age they'll not want their 'window office' to be a seat at a coffee bar.
I'm 35. I had a real window office most of my adult life, and I'm much happier now.
Re:Decentralisation (Score:3, Informative)
Little Kimberly Anne survived her disease and took off on her own six years ago. She's happy and living in Seattle, and writes book reviews for MSNBC.
Re:Decentralisation (Score:4, Funny)
and CEO gets 95% dollars (Score:4, Insightful)
Its one thing to have controlling interests (>50%) share, but its another quite evil thing to USE your employees to make yourself filthy rich, then sell out, sack the employees and leave em to dry while the CEO walks away super uber rich with 10 lifetimes of assets/money.
Re:and CEO gets 95% dollars (Score:3, Insightful)
You know how to solve that?
Open your own company and stop complaining.
That is the beauty of a free market.
That should read. (Score:2)
easier solution (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:easier solution (Score:3, Informative)
Re:easier solution (Score:2)
Easier to go insane, yes (Score:5, Insightful)
I started a company with a friend of mine three years ago. We each worked out of own homes, and met twice a week in person (at a coffee shop, natch') to be sure we were synched up. But after a while it started to become difficult for me to stay in the same damned room all day, then move over a few feet into the kitchen for dinner, a few feet over to the living room to watch a movie, and then a few feet again to go to sleep. I felt like a freakin' hamster.
When we got the chance to share office space with a couple of other guys who ran their own small companies, we jumped at the chance. Splitting the money three ways makes rent much cheaper, and we get human contact. Sometimes you don't need to have specific interaction. You just need to be around people.
That's part of the appeal of working in a coffee shop. You can focus on what you're doing, but there's enough human activity that you can also get that feeling of connectedness. When you work alone at home by yourself it's easy to feel disconnected from the rest of humanity, no matter how many IMs you get from your buddies.
But maybe it's just me. I haven't yet transcended meatspace.
Re:Easier to go insane, yes (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Easier to go insane, yes (Score:5, Insightful)
So... a few days ago i had a big deadline. I was REALLY getting concerned by my workflow (or lack of...) so i took the opportunity to work from home (i live 200 yards away, so the guys dont have a problem with it) and worked 36 hours flat (dont.. ask) because for the first time in months, i felt GENUINELY motivated. i couldnt believe how motivated i was just being able to focus without some idiot slagging me off/boosting his ego.
And that's my story. too much of one can piss you off, too little can also piss you off... and dont work with wankers, it isnt fun.
Re:easier solution (Score:5, Insightful)
Personally, I like to separate my work from my life. It's not that I like one and not the other, it's that I like them to be different.
I do work in an office, but when I work on my own projects ( robotics & AI ) I do it in a coffee shop. It works for some mindsets. For me it gives me the comfort of *not* being cooped up in my apartment. I get to be surrounded by humanity, and in the chaos of noise, people and music, somehow my mind focuses like a needle.
When I work at home, I end up just being distracted and watch a movie, or spend time with my GF.
E.g., not productive
Re:easier solution (Score:5, Insightful)
Very true. I thought I would; I'm a fairly introverted guy and able to focus pretty well on things, so when I had the opportunity to work remotely for my company, I did for about a year and a half. It was great at first, but after a while I found myself longing for more of a division between work. Working from home, for me at least, led to a feeling that I was never not at work; if I had some spare time, there was a small feeling prodding me to spend it finishing up some project for my job.
I finally had enough, so I found a new job, in which I work for a relatively large company in a large room with 10 or so other developers in it. It's actually quite refreshing to have those other folks around. Just having some other ideas floating around me has greatly increased my motivation. Plus, when I get home, I'm now only at home, not at work.
Re:easier solution (Score:2)
But I can't imagine working in a coffee shop WITH my coworkers. That would kill my ability to focus. The second any of them want to take a break, it would automatically make everybody else want to stop and talk, because the surroundings are too close.
Re:easier solution (Score:2)
Security? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Security? (Score:5, Informative)
It's called data encryption, in the form of a VPN. Look into it.
Really -- this problem has been solved for a long, long time. Create your own virtual network within the network by implementing an encryption and authentication system so that only those systems and users belonging to the company can connect and intercommunicate, and your work just looks like garbage to anyone wishing to snoop in on you.
Yaz.
Yeah, but... (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Yeah, but... (Score:2)
I suspect that after the Wired stroy, the coffee shop may just start thinking about that.
Re:Yeah, but... (Score:3, Informative)
I'm not much of a coffee drinker.. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:I'm not much of a coffee drinker.. (Score:2, Funny)
At least it would solve all those stress and morale issues people are always complaining about.
Re:I'm not much of a coffee drinker.. (Score:3, Funny)
I think you've got it wrong: it's the beer you rent! =P
next version concerns (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:next version concerns (Score:2)
Re:next version concerns (Score:5, Informative)
Amazon already has 1,000,000x the data on people's buying habits and their relations to each other than we'll ever collect, so I suspect that if marketers were going to have a field day, they'd be calling Amazon long before us.
It's true that it'd be _possible_ for us to do less-than-good things with the data we collect, but we're not going to. We're going to use the data to create new virtual communities of people with common interests, and bring our fragmented society closer together. If you don't want to join in those communities, don't check the preference box.
Mike has always been against us making the "buy similar items" aspect of our product too prominent, because he didn't want us to seem like a front-end to Amazon. And when we were looking for a way to help the world with our money, It was his idea to give all of our Amazon associates' money to charity, so it's clear to our customers we are NOT trying to encourage them to BUY BUY BUY.
Any new technology can be used for good or evil. I would expect people on this forum would recognize this truism isn't an argument against progress; it's a caution against recklessness.
Coffee? (Score:5, Funny)
Not surprising when your co-founder was... (Score:5, Insightful)
Co-founder of OmniGroup in Seattle.
http://www.omnigroup.com
I had no idea Wil left his baby, OmniWeb to do a start-up. With his almost 15 years of Cocoa programming experience I'm sure they'll make it.
I met these guys at Macworld... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:I met these guys at Macworld... (Score:2, Insightful)
Sure, they could get hired at Apple, but then they'd have to start listening to the people above them.
Re:I met these guys at Macworld... (Score:2)
Before I worked at NeXT, Wil Shipley did interns with NeXT while at the UofW.
I'm sure he enjoys Seattle.
Nice Software But... (Score:3, Insightful)
I have to admit that I bought the software because I am a Criterion collector and because the developers did a really nice job in terms of look and feel. So I scanned hundreds and hundreds of DVDs in there and now I can see them sitting on gorgeous virtual shelves on my fully loaded PowerBook G4. And I can pat myself in the back. And that is about it.
The fact that useless software (and products in general) that does not make you nicer, more knowledgeable, or more intelligent can generate so much revenue is beyond common sense. But the saddest part is that I am actually contributing to that trend.
Re:Nice Software But... (Score:3, Insightful)
If I had access to my book collection, I imagine Delicious Library might come in handy. If I scanned in all of my books, I could instantly find out whether I had a particular book or not. (More than once, I've bought a copy of a book I already owned.) Even better, I could search within (some of) the books I owned using Amazon's search feature. Of course, I can
Re:Nice Software But... (Score:2, Informative)
One of the reasons I buy media is to lend it out to my friends. I've lost more than one book/DVD/game that way, and Delicious helps me keep things organized. It's superbly designed, really easy to use, and does exactly what it says it does.
You've got buyer's remorse. I'm a happy customer. Both of us were free to buy, or not buy, the program. What's the problem?
Re:Nice Software But... (Score:4, Insightful)
For starters, I have no interest in spending my money on something that makes me "nicer". What the hell is something that makes you "nicer" anyway? Prozac?
Secondly, have you looked at the things that people spend money on? You don't have to delve too deeply into the economy to see that people don't spend the majority of their moeny on "things to make them more knowledgeable, or more intelligent". What does "common sense" have to do with anything?
But the saddest part is that I am actually contributing to that trend.
No, the saddest part is you didn't have he foresight to realize that a piece of software designed to catalog your software isn't going to make you "nicer", "more knowledgeable" or "more intelligent". It's a goddamn pretty database application. Were you expecting to achieve enlightenment or something after you installed it?
Re:Nice Software But... (Score:2, Insightful)
If you have to store your books in boxes (if you have too many), that's another good use, although I don't know if the software
Mac: A nice system but.... (Score:2)
I have to admit that I bought the powerbook because I am a developer and because Apple did a really nice job in terms of look and feel. I did some coding work on it, and it is no different then if I would have done it on my previous computer. And I can pat myself in the back. And that is about it.
The fact that a useless shiny computer (and products in general) that does not make you nicer, more knowledgeable, or more intelligent can generate so much revenue is bey
Re:Nice Software But... (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't actually want to argue with your point, although it's worth mentioning, as other people have, that you can print out your list of stuff and tuck it in a safety deposit box, so if you lose your collection to fire or theft it'll all be replaced exactly. Or you can print your collection and take the list to the video/book store and make sure you don't duplicate items. Or you can track your loans and make sure you don't lose items.
Or you can use the smart recommendations and find items you never knew you'd like, and buy with more confidence that you aren't wasting money. Or you can sell items you're no longer using in just a couple clicks, and make some extra money AND tidy up your life.
All of these things potentially make and/or save you money.
But, you may not want to do any of that. What I'd like to point out is, our real goal in writing software is to make you smile.
Did we succeed at that? Because, for instance, "The Incredibles" probably didn't make you better, stronger, faster (etc), but I'm betting you don't regret the $9 you spent on it. And if every company's goal was to make products that made people smile, I don't think the world would be a bad place at all.
Well that is the core business of coffee shops (Score:5, Interesting)
Anyone who's worked for a large investment bank and has tried to book an office for a quick meeting will know this is true (especially if the meeting rooms operate as a "profit centre" and so you have be recharged the costs). It's amazing how much you can find out about the state of the IT dept of a large company just by hanging out in the nearest coffee shop - are they hiring or firing, are the staff excited or bitching, what new projects are they working on.... industrial espionage was rarely so cheap.
Similarly, airports are now in the business of selling multi-day car parking and short term entertainment for an hour or two.
Re:Well that is the core business of coffee shops (Score:2)
Re:Well that is the core business of coffee shops (Score:5, Interesting)
Used to be flying was expensive, but parking at the airport was cheap and you got some cheap shopping to soften the blow (in Europe in particular).
Now the flights cost virtually nothing, but suddenly it costs me more to park my car for a couple of days than it does to fly to Geneva and back. If these were inner city car parks with expensive land, I'd understand, but Stansted Airport in the UK is in the middle of nowhere.
So the airport is now making money not from the airlines (it's traditional customers) but is instead selling itself to the passengers, and looking to remove as much incidental cash as it can from their wallets as they pass thru on their "cheap flights".
Not that I'm blaming them, it's just the observation that they're sort of redefining their core business as they follow the money.
Re:Well that is the core business of coffee shops (Score:2)
Seriously.
It was always both interesting and relaxing to head down to DTW, go grab something to munch on, and sit around watching all sorts of people come and go, aircraft taking off and landing, etc.
Re:Well that is the core business of coffee shops (Score:2)
Re:Well that is the core business of coffee shops (Score:4, Interesting)
Whenever I've gone to a Starbucks (all of twenty times, admittedly) it's always jam packed and there's nowhere to sit. I once got a seat at a Starbucks out in a small country town. In LA? Forget it. The Starbucks in Studio City is full to capacity every time I've been there.
Luckily you can find nicer coffee shops that are emptier, but those tend not to have wireless. Oh the shame.
It's not as good as it sounds (Score:5, Funny)
Now if only I had products I sold that earned money, I'd be breaking even...
Cuecat (Score:2)
Re:Cuecat (Score:2)
Re:Cuecat (Score:2)
Re:Cuecat (Score:2)
Anyway, they show up under XP as a standard "Human Input Device," like a USB keyboard. I imagine they would work on Macs too.
Re:Cuecat (Score:3, Informative)
Can I use my CueCat or other USB barcode scanner with Delicious Library?
Delicious Library should support any USB barcode scanner that sends data in the same fashion as a keyboard. The CueCat scanner does not fall into this category, but the following instructions allow you to modify the CueCat to be more compatible.
How to modify your CueCat barcode scanner (1965 USB Models): The USB models has an onboard 16 pin SMD com
Better hire a lawyer (Score:2, Funny)
Similiar Software. (Score:2, Interesting)
Lloyds of London started the same way (Score:5, Informative)
Excerpts from the book "Against the Gods" by Peter Bernstein [powells.com]:
"One afternoon in 1637 * a Cretan scholar named Canopius sat down in his chambers at Balliol College, Oxford, and made himself a cup of strong coffee. Canopius's brew is believed to mark the first time coffee was drunk in England; it proved so popular when it was offered to the public that hundreds of coffee houses were soon in operation all over London.
What does Canopius's coffee have to do with * the concept of risk? Simply that a coffee house was the birthplace of Lloyd's of London, which for more than two centuries was the most famous of all insurance company's. *
The second half of the seventeenth century was also an era of burgeoning trade. The Dutch were the predominant commercial power of the time, and England was their main rival. Ships arrived daily from colonies and suppliers around the globe to unload a profusion of products that had once been scarce or unknown luxuries-sugar and spice, coffee and tea, raw cotton and fine porcelain. * Information from remote areas of the world was now of crucial importance to the domestic economy. With the volume of shipping constantly expanding, there was a lively demand for current information with which to estimate sailing times between destinations, weather patterns, and the risks lurking in unfamiliar seas.
In the absence of mass media, the coffee houses emerged as the primary source of news and rumour. In 1675, Charles II,
suspicious as many rulers are of places where the public trades information, shut the coffee houses down, but the uproar was so great that he had to reverse himself sixteen days later. Samuel Pepys frequented a coffee house to get news of the arrival of ships he was interested in; he deemed the news he received there to be more reliable than what he learned at his job at the Admiralty.
The coffee house that Edward Lloyd opened in 1687 near the Thames on Tower Street was a favourite haunt of men from the ships that moored at London's docks. The house was "spacious, well built and inhabited by able tradesmen" according to a contemporary publication. It grew so popular that in 1691 Lloyd moved it to much larger and more luxurious quarters on Lombard Street. Nat Ward, a publican whom Alexander Pope accused of trading vile rhymes for tobacco, reported that the tables in the new house were "very neat and shined with rubbing." A staff of five served tea and sherbet as well as coffee.
Lloyd had grown up under Oliver Cromwell and he had lived through plague, fire, the Dutch invasion up the Thames in 1667, and the Glorious Revolution of 1688. He was a lot more than a skilled coffeehouse host. Recognizing the value of his customer base and responding to the insistent demand for information, he launched "Lloyd's List" in 1696 and filled it with information on the arrivals and departures of ships and intelligence on conditions abroad and at sea. That information was provided by a network of correspondents in major ports on the Continent and in England. Ship auctions took place regularly on the premises, and Lloyd obligingly furnished the paper and ink needed to record the transactions. One corner was reserved for ships' captains where they could compare notes on the hazards of all the new routes that were opening up - routes that led them farther east, farther south, and farther west than ever before. Lloyd's establishment was open almost around the clock and was always crowded.
Then as now, anyone who was seeking insurance would go to a broker, who would then hawk the risk to the individual risk-takers who gathered in the coffee houses or in the precincts of the Royal Exchange. When a deal was closed, the risk-taker would confirm his agreement to cover the loss in return for a specified premium by writing his name
My stupid Seattle Coffee Shop story... (Score:3, Interesting)
For those of you who haven't read Schultz's book, Starbucks and Peet's are linked in their history. Many folks say that it was really Alfred Peet who introduced Schultz to the darker, Full City roast that Starbucks finally used for their coffees.
Well, having read the book about the history, I wanted to see Peet's, too. There weren't any in New Orleans, where I lived at the time.
I visited one near the city center and I was immediately struck by the similarity in decor and layout between Peets and Starbucks. I mentioned this to the attendant.
It's true! Icy glares do send a chill down your spine.
I came to understand later the local rivalry between the companies that harkens all the way back to when Peet left Starbucks. Somehow Schultz didn't mention this. I can't believe it!
Re:My stupid Seattle Coffee Shop story... (Score:2)
Re:My stupid Seattle Coffee Shop story... (Score:2)
For a more journalistic take, I refer you to the famous Onion article Starbucks To Begin Sinister `Phase Two' Of Operation [washington.edu] (weird URL because the original article isn't available anymore).
They're like McDonald's, not really where you wanted to g
This reminds me of some OTHER software... (Score:2)
Remember the CueCat? That which scanned items and barcodes and transmitted them out over the 'Net to marketers? No offense, but I really don't think that open profiles with scanned barcode data for individual people won't be exploited somehow.
Good idea, guys, but unless the profile information is inaccessible to robots, the consumer gets the shaf
Wow.. (Score:2)
"We work eight hours a day." (Score:2)
Damn, I want their job. Only 8 hours a day? Do they mean 7 days a week?
Cocoa bindings (Score:5, Interesting)
It's really not that unique (Score:3, Interesting)
The Mac community has some great shareware developers. Some work out of their own homes. No office, no staff. Just their own place.
Some collaborate online. Look at all the open source products now. Not all have their own office (like the Mozilla Foundation). Quite a few projects are 100% virtual.
I think this model will have even more of an impact in the next 10-15 years. It's not really necessary for someone who programs all day to have an office to themselves... it's wasteful.
It's perfectly acceptable for such an employee to work from home, or any other environment, and perhaps spend 1 day, or perhaps 2 afternoons a week in the office. You can then used shared work space and cut down on costs.
With the availability of high speed connections, VPN's for secure network access, VoIP providers providing cheap phone access....
the only thing is human interaction. And even that. Think about how often your actually "need". A few meetings a week. Now how many of those can't be done over the phone?
Really, only a much smaller sum of work needs to be done at the office.
Provided good management skills are used, to keep employees on target, and on time... there's nothing wrong with a virtual company.
In fact... it's much more efficient.
Don't forget the time you save people. If you work 1 day in the office a week, that's only 2 commutes (one each way). With an average commute time of a little under an hour (being generious). That's several hours a week that an employee can then use to either conduct work, or extra family time (or time at the strip club).
Why not hire the guy who lives in Kansas when the office is in NYC? If he's good, it's great. You can teleconfrence him in, and fly him in for a day or two every several weeks. He can work from home, and code just like the guys in the office. You don't need office space (which in a city like NYC, just a few square feed for a cubicle is expensive). Just pay his office phone, DSL/Cable line, and send him some hardware.
Wiki's, Bugzilla-like systems, Intranet Portals, Email, VoIP, they all make it much easier to do.
Virtual Companies will be playing more and more of a role in the future. Especially true for IT jobs. Since they are very easy to do remotely.
decaf is the witch's brew (Score:2)
Booxter (Score:3, Informative)
This [deepprose.com] looks exactly the same without the fancy wood panelling.
Readerware? (Score:3, Interesting)
Am I the only coffee-house user who this annoys? (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't mind people working in coffee houses. I don't mind people meeting in coffee houses. What I do mind is when people start doing things like presentations to enough other people that they have to raise their voices, talk loudly and endlessly on their damn cell phones (not to mention taking endless calls), and blather away like they own the whole place. Guess what - it's not your office, guys. It's really not.
Tech nerds are usually fairly good about this. Some of the local business types are just complete pricks about this, though. It's like they've never considered the idea that the whole place isn't interested in the unique, dynamic work environment that their chain restaurant is going to provide.
I'm not under the delusion that coffee houses should be some sort of library-like atmosphere, or that no-one should ever conduct business there, or anything like that. I'd just like (for a change) for people who are doing business in a coffeehouse to recognize that they aren't in their own office.
Re:as long as it's not starbucks (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: shipping things UPS (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:A real company needs an official mailing addres (Score:5, Funny)
All these assets are guarded by two fierce attack-cats, so don't try looking up our address of incorporation and breaking into my house! You will emerge fuzzy, my friend. FUZZY!
Re:as long as it's not starbucks (Score:2)
Re:as long as it's not starbucks (Score:2)
Re:as long as it's not starbucks (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:as long as it's not starbucks (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:No different than any other virtual company (Score:5, Funny)
Re:No different than any other virtual company (Score:2)
That, and that you can apparently win awards for being a barista. Who knew?
We can just hope that Apple doesn't take this product and roll it into their OS; lookit what happened to Sherlock and Konfabulator. I hope those guys have their patents squared away.
Re:No different than any other virtual company (Score:2)
Dashboard is basically a replacement for Sherlock.
Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
Re:good luck.. (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:good luck.. (Score:2)
Or the lobby of a bank is usually good for a quick bit of work (no meetings mind you) or taking mobile hone calls somewhere quiet and dry.
They provide tables and chairs, pens and paper and they're quiet - just walk in sit down, grab a few forms and pull out your cheque book, then you "get distracted" by the phone or your PC or whatever... if my phone rings in a busy street I
Re:Trendy featherbrains (Score:2)
Re:Meetings... (Score:4, Interesting)
I don't think it's ruffled anyone's feathers. We've done press interviews and met insurance guys and interviewed employees. Everyone seems to feel very at home. I guess it's not much different from meeting a client when you're on the road.
[The hilarious part is that our Zoka happens to be RIGHT next door to The Omni Group. I mean, literally the next building over. So, for people I've done business with before, it's like, "Uh, remember where I used to be? Well..."]
Re:I see we have it all wrong (Score:4, Insightful)
The two La Marzoccos [lamarzocco.com] at Zoka cost, no kidding, something over $20,000 each. (They are re-tuned by hand once they come in the United States to be even more frou-frou.) Their entire water supply is run through an enormous Cuno water filter [cunofoodservice.com]. They roast their own beans (which they sell as far away as Japan) and train baristas from all over the country. Their baristas consistently place tops in the national tournaments.
Seriously, you have to try an extra-foamy mocha here [zokacoffee.com]. Imagine drinking coffee-meringue-pie!