How Should You Tip Your Barista?
At Phoenix, we are thankful for the generosity of our customers who tip our baristas. We know that it's hard to know when to tip, how much to tip, and what is expected or even polite when it comes to tipping baristas. At a table service restaurant, the 18% guideline is firmly established. There really is no percentage guideline for counter service at a coffee shop, although on average, the gross tips from each day do add up to about 9% of the sales. Some people never tip, and some people tip $1.00 for their $2.00 coffee. We'd like to think that these big tippers are earning not only our appreciation, but also some good karma.
It's no surprise that our thoughts on tipping are quite different from Starbucks' position on the matter. In a 2006 NY Daily News article, Starbucks management was quoted as saying that Starbucks baristas don't need tips. “We don’t expect our customers to pay anything extra to receive our legendary service,” Starbucks marketing manager Dan Lewis explained. The tip boxes at Starbucks registers are there “to avoid loose tips on tables and counters throughout the store,” he said.
At Phoenix Coffee, our baristas do need tips, and we encourage customers to tip generously and often. We hope that our customers enjoy our authentic style of personal service, where baristas are given the freedom to simply be a person being of service to another person. We value this kind of personalized service, which is why you’ll never hear about a “standard greeting” or other service formulas at Phoenix. Instead, it’s our goal to create a warm, friendly ambiance at each of our cafes, where our baristas will greet you in their own individual way, and hopefully you’ll feel that they deserve to be rewarded for their efforts.
Thanks for your patronage and the generous tips!
Weekly Events at the Lee Road Phoenix
Every Tuesday, there is a Spanish Club that meets starting around 7:00 pm. Details can be found on Meetup.com, but all Spanish speakers are welcome.
Every Wednesday from 8:00 till 10:00 pm, we offer an open microphone for budding local musicians, poets and other performance artists. The evening is hosted by consummate open mic professional and local musical talent, Charlie Mosbrook. Charlie creates a nurturing yet creative ambiance at his open mics and we are so proud and pleased to have Charlie's talents featured at our cafe. Sign ups begin at 7:30 pm.
Here's a video of Charlie playing Sing Out from his 2009 CD:
Compostable Cups Are Here!
The new Phoenix Coffee compostable cups are just starting to arrive at our cafes. These cups are the culmination of almost a year's worth of thought and effort. They were painstakingly designed by our in-house designer, Sean Higgins. As the new cups begin to arrive at each cafe, we will now offer you a choice when you purchase a beverage to go: either bring your own mug or buy one of our new compostable cups for $0.10 each. This nominal ten cent "green fee" is our way of encouraging everyone to adopt sustainable habits, such as bringing your own mug and minimizing the use of disposables whenever possible. In Ireland, the country reduced the use of disposable shopping bags by 96% by introducing a similar "green fee". We hope to reduce our use of disposables by more than 100,000 cups this year, and to compost just as many, thereby reducing our ecological footprint. Thanks for helping with our efforts! You can read our press release here.
About the Lee Road Cafe
Our Lee Road café has been in operation as an independent café serving Phoenix Coffee, since it was opened in 1992 by Mickey Szilagyi as Miklos’ Coffee Bar. We bought it in October of 2000 and turned it into a Phoenix Coffee. This café is almost always full of neighborhood folks, ranging from Harsh and Kate from the CWRU Physics Department, or your favorite HVAC repairman, Mike Borkin, or the high school kids who come in after school lets out. Our large patio out back gets quite full in the summer as well. Spanish Club meets on Tuesday nights and Wednesday night is open mic night, hosted by the illustrious, professional and talented Charlie Mosbrook.
We recently renovated this café, replacing the worn countertops and cabinets with repurposed and refinished cabinets from an old John Carroll science lab. You’ll notice that the menu boards (like at all our other cafes) are made from repurposed multiple-pane window frames. The new artwork was designed by local artist Jen Craun and crafted by Polly Wilson using repurposed and found materials, focusing on the use of burlap from our roastery. We also feature rotating art by local artists, curated by Heights Arts. The Lee Road Café is located in the vibrant Cedar Lee District, featuring many independent restaurants, innovative retailers such as Revive Fair Trade store, and the iconic Cedar Lee independent film theatre.
