Coffee In A Post-Pandemic Era

 Worker shortage. Supply chain issues. No matter where you go you're reminded of both when you shop or dine in this post-pandemic time..

On a vacation recently my wife and I stopped at our favorite coffee shop, Tim Horton's. We always rejoice when we encounter a Tim Horton's on one of our long road trips. This one was near Buffalo, New York. It was a busy one too, a much larger establishment than the one in our home town and a line of several cars in the drive-through. We went in to order as we had to use the restroom.

I was surprised when we approached the counter. There appeared to be only three employees on the other side, one of whom was busy preparing sandwiches. A middle-aged fellow who obviously was the manager was busy at the drive-through window and an even older lady was working the counter for the walk-ins. She seemed stressed.

The lady whose order she was trying to fill stood ahead of us in line. She turned to us and said, “I'm glad I don't have any more 'first days'.” Neither do we since we're retired but I immediately felt sympathy for the lady taking our order since she seemed to be at the age where she should be contemplating retirement herself.

When it was our turn, we ordered our usual two medium coffees with cream and Sweet and Low, and a pumpkin spice muffin to share. The manager came over from his post at the drive-through window to help her ring us up. I felt bad for him since the line of cars hadn't moved in a while and at least one driver had pulled out of the line, not wanting to wait any longer.

Our clerk made our coffees fine but when she gave them to us at the counter, she acted as if our order was complete. “We also ordered a pumpkin spice muffin,” my wife said. The clerk said, “Oh!” and walked off with one of our coffees.

What?! In the words of the English, we were gobsmacked. “That's my coffee,” my wife called out as the woman headed somewhere away from us. The manager heard my wife from his post at the drive-through but with his hands full, all he could do was give his worker a puzzled look. That's all we could do too.

She brought back the coffee and said she had added the pumpkin spice. But my wife said we wanted a pumpkin spice muffin, not pumpkin spice coffee. The clerk was dismayed. “Nursing was easier than this,” she lamented.

Though the clerk wanted to dump the coffee and start over, we said we would try it first, wanting to get back on the road. As a goodwill gesture, she gave us two pumpkin spice muffins, once she figured out where they were in the display case. The baker came out to help her find them and we pointed them out as well.

Wow. So glad to be back on the road after that. At least the lady who waited on us was too sweet, and so was our coffee. We drank it anyway. Well, I did. It just made us more anxious to be home where the Tim Horton's usually has four or five people working behind the counter. And since we're regulars, they know our order so well it sometimes appears on the electronic order screen at the drive-through before I say a word.

One of the joys of being home.