When Molly Tallman asked the barista at Sacramento’s Drippish Coffee how many types of mocha lattes were available, she did not expect the woman to pull out a taser and stifle her question with 38,000 volts.
Yet that’s exactly what happened to her last Thursday – and to hundreds of other customers since January 1, when Drippish implemented a policy of tasing customers who stall the line by more than 45 seconds.
“The choices weren’t posted on the wall,” says Tallman. “It would have taken her half a minute to tell me what they were.” But that, according to Drippish owner Cecilia Hunt, would have been half a minute too long.
“We respect our customers’ time, so it is our responsibility to move them in and out quickly,” she says. “It was her responsibility to know the lattes before she came into the store.” Likewise, says Hunt, people should have their payment ready, avoid non-essential banter with the servers, and never asked for extra cream.
At Drippish, each coffee bean is raised individually and stored for two years in cryopentronic chambers. Baristas routinely use three separate eyedroppers and 12 ingredients making a single cup, taking an average of 54 minutes on each.
“We absolutely don’t have a second to waste,” says Hunt. As of June 1, she says, 687 customers have been tased. All but three of them continue to patronize the store – including Tallman.
“You get used to their three-way, plankton-based lattte de crème,” says tased customer Tallman, “I guess it’s safe to say that I now take a lot less time to place my orders.”
