Sign the wifi agreement before you order - learned this the hard way at Blue Bottle

Ngl I walked into this Blue Bottle in Austin last Tuesday thinking I could just grab a quick coffee and get some work done. Took me 20 minutes to actually get through the ordering screen because their app forced me to accept a 3 page terms of service before I could even add a drink to my cart. Then the barista told me the same thing happens on their in store tablet if you try to pay with a card. Has anyone else run into these over the top checkout flows that make a simple coffee run take half an hour?

3 comments

3 Comments

logan_young2918d agoMost Upvoted

Wait THIRTY MINUTES? That is ABSOLUTELY insane for a cup of coffee. I would have just walked out and gone to the gas station down the street. I get so sick of companies forcing you to jump through hoops just to give them money. Like why do I need to agree to some massive terms of service just to buy a latte? Its coffee not a mortgage application. Blue Bottle used to be cool but stuff like this makes me never want to go back. I bet the barista was just as annoyed as you were having to deal with that mess.

ray_miller8418d ago

Heard Blue Bottle got bought out by Nestle a while back, so none of this surprises me. Big companies ruin everything they touch.

clark.alex18d ago

Yeah totally @ray_miller84 that Nestle buyout thing is real. I had a buddy who used to manage a Blue Bottle in SF back in like 2018, right after the acquisition. He told me corporate started making them use these special pour-over kettles that took forever to heat up and had to be calibrated every morning. Said they went from like a 4 step process to a 12 step checklist just for a basic drip coffee. Dude quit after 6 months because he said it stopped feeling like making coffee and started feeling like filling out a tax form for each cup. That 30 minute wait sounds about right for how they run things now.