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For $45 Per Month, All the Coffee You Can Drink

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Re: For $45 Per Month, All the Coffee You Can Drink

#101

Post by devindotcom »

drcode wrote: post #55

As someone who works out of coffee shops a lot, there is pretty much ZERO appeal for me to use this kind of service, since I view my coffee costs as "rent" and prefer to pay full price plus a tip to be viewed as a good customer. Bringing in an app saying "I'm a cheapskate that doesn't want to pay full price" is not the message I want to give to coffee shop staff.

Yeah, I do this too, though I try not to stay for more than two or three hours, and make sure I always have something in my cup. Fear of getting overcaffeinated drives me to other places.

I do think a shared promotional community between the coffee shops around here (Seattle) would be good, but most are doing pretty well so no one feels any pressure.

Re: For $45 Per Month, All the Coffee You Can Drink

#102

Post by agotterer »

D9u wrote: post #66

Not one cup of coffee in over 50 years... When someone offers all the beer I drink for one low monthly price, I'll be signing up.

I'm not sure this is possible in a retail setting. There are rules around incentivizing the purchase of alcohol. Which is why you don't see promotions like buy one get one free... with the exception of happy hour and bottomless brunch sort of deals. Which have a whole different set of rules and exceptions.

Re: For $45 Per Month, All the Coffee You Can Drink

#103

Post by aestra »

pwthornton wrote: post #83
aestra wrote: post #12

Significant savings for some. If you had a 2 cups a day coffee habit, this works out to about $.73 a cup or $1.45 a day. Pretty good deal if you like coffee shop coffee. Assuming you'll otherwise spend $3 per cup you'll save about $1657 a year. $2190 vs $532.90.

The coffee included with the $45 plan (there are two tiers), is not $3 coffee. It's black coffee. In DC, a small drip coffee or pour over runs around $1.80 or so. It's $85 a month for the plan that includes lattes and other more expensive espresso drinks. A small latte usually runs around $3 or so. An espresso might be $2.25-2.50. Two small lattes a day (not a lot of caffeine) would save you a ton of money a month wi…

>A small latte usually runs around $3 or so. An espresso might be $2.25-2.50.

I don't live in NYC and lattes are more like $4-$5 here.

Re: For $45 Per Month, All the Coffee You Can Drink

#104

Post by mertd »

pwthornton wrote: post #83
aestra wrote: post #12

Significant savings for some. If you had a 2 cups a day coffee habit, this works out to about $.73 a cup or $1.45 a day. Pretty good deal if you like coffee shop coffee. Assuming you'll otherwise spend $3 per cup you'll save about $1657 a year. $2190 vs $532.90.

The coffee included with the $45 plan (there are two tiers), is not $3 coffee. It's black coffee. In DC, a small drip coffee or pour over runs around $1.80 or so. It's $85 a month for the plan that includes lattes and other more expensive espresso drinks. A small latte usually runs around $3 or so. An espresso might be $2.25-2.50. Two small lattes a day (not a lot of caffeine) would save you a ton of money a month wi…

By "pourover", they don't mean machine drip coffee. It's the coffee a barista individually brews per order on a pourover cone. I've never seen it cheaper than $3, including DC.

Re: For $45 Per Month, All the Coffee You Can Drink

#105

Post by nitid_name »

Patrick_Devine wrote: post #91
jasonkester wrote: post #14

Cool idea, but it seems to target a pretty narrow demographic: - wealthy enough to live in NYC and buy at least one cup of coffee every single work day - cheap enough to want to save a few bucks a month on coffee - can't be bothered to carry a credit card around every day - can be bothered to carry a smart phone around every day - trendy enough to frequent NYC coffee shops - untrendy enough to be seen using "coupons"…

It's not quite like having a coupon or carrying a credit card, but more like insurance. You're insuring that the maximum you'll pay for coffee every month is $45. If you think of it that way, it's a pretty good deal, and doesn't come with a ton of friction (you're more than likely already carrying a smart phone). Now you certainly could pay less than $45/month on coffee with coupons, but this takes away the hassle fr…

Doesn't every coffee place in NYC use the same blue coffee cups?

I haven't been in awhile, but I remember the slice of pizza being pretty consistent from shop to shop and something about it being related to the cost of the subway. I could imagine coffee having a similar pricing scheme throughout the city.

Re: For $45 Per Month, All the Coffee You Can Drink

#106

Post by alexkus »

vijucat wrote: post #100
theorique wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I own 3 espresso machines and have access to 5 no matter where I am What's your average resting heart rate? :)

Ha, I was thinking of the same thing. Who knows, maybe he's built for this kind of thing. On that note : if he can get a good night's sleep after all that caffeine, then I envy this man's constitution, which can absorb so much caffeine and still not reel from it! Poor me has to strictly follow a no-caffeine after 6 p.m. rule if I have to get any sleep. Actually, come to think of it, the only time I can handle coffee…

Can't put in words how much better I sleep after moving to decaffeinated coffee.

I do like a nice coffee but I'm content with instant[1] decaf (and even if I have 10 cups a day it's not more caffeine than the equivalent of a single cup of caffeinated coffee).

Not spending £3/$5 a day on coffee helps too. It means I'll pay my mortgage off 2 years early.

1. A lot more prevalent here in the UK: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-magazine-monitor-26869244

Re: For $45 Per Month, All the Coffee You Can Drink

#107

Post by pwthornton »

mertd wrote: post #104
pwthornton wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The coffee included with the $45 plan (there are two tiers), is not $3 coffee. It's black coffee. In DC, a small drip coffee or pour over runs around $1.80 or so. It's $85 a month for the plan that includes lattes and other more expensive espresso drinks. A small latte usually runs around $3 or so. An espresso might be $2.25-2.50. Two small lattes a day (not a lot of caffeine) would save you a ton of money a month wi…

By "pourover", they don't mean machine drip coffee. It's the coffee a barista individually brews per order on a pourover cone. I've never seen it cheaper than $3, including DC.

I know. I've gotten it for cheaper in DC, and at Starbucks they'll often make pourover for the same price as drip coffee if you order at an odd hour.

I would imagine not all of the coffee shops on this list do pourover, and not all users will want to wait for a pourover, if there is fresh drip coffee.

Re: For $45 Per Month, All the Coffee You Can Drink

#108

Post by mseebach »

jp555 wrote: post #52
mseebach wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tap water for drinking is effectively almost free, and free water fountains are indeed ubiquitous. It's the two 30-minute showers a day that kill your parents water (and heating) bills.

Actually more than anything it's the condo pool (and the dozens of owners who have not yet moved to low-flow toilets) that kills our water bill. :P ... also coffee is almost entirely water... so by your logic it's "almost free" as well.

> ... also coffee is almost entirely water... so by your logic it's "almost free" as well.

No, not by my logic, not by anyone's logic. Almost the entire price of a cup of coffee covers the "bean" and "labour" part of it. The contribution of the cost of the water to the final cost of a cup of coffee is ... almost nothing at all.

Re: For $45 Per Month, All the Coffee You Can Drink

#109

Post by mseebach »

deltaqueue wrote: post #78
mseebach wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not quite. The "Americano" (espresso with hot water) common in countries with the espresso coffee culture was invented during WW2 when the GIs requested bigger cups of weaker coffee. The american "regular coffee" is (weak) drip brewed coffee.

Getting a bit pedantic, but a few corrections: 1. That origin is just urban legend. Americanos started in the 70's. 2. Per ounce, you're technically correct about the strength of espresso vs. drip/brewed coffee. But brews have variable strengths, and most Americans drink 12, 18, and 24 ounce drip coffees (which ends up being more caffeine than even a quad shot of espresso).

2: I mean "strength" in a broader sense than caffeine content. I get more jittery from drip coffee (or french press, my personal poison of choice) than I do from espresso - I seem to recall having read that a shot of espresso contains less caffeine than a cup of regular coffee because of the quick extraction. But espresso has a much more intense (stronger) flavour.

Re: For $45 Per Month, All the Coffee You Can Drink

#110

Post by mseebach »

dingaling wrote: post #90
mseebach wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tap water for drinking is effectively almost free, and free water fountains are indeed ubiquitous. It's the two 30-minute showers a day that kill your parents water (and heating) bills.

> Tap water for drinking is effectively almost free The average 2013 annual water rates bill in England is £390, or $650. > and free water fountains are indeed ubiquitous I've just been on a day-trip to England, through two major regional airports. I paid about £12 in total for bottled water during the day, suffering inflated airport shop prices, because there was not a single water fountain ( I asked ). Average pric…

> The average 2013 annual water rates bill in England is £390, or $650.

Most of which is non-drinking uses of water, such as bathing, washing, dishwashing, cleaning, flushing, garden irrigation, filling the pool etc.

I just paid £170 (IIRC, I don't have the bill handy, but around that amount) for 65 m^3 of water. That's £.0026 per liter. The general recommendation is for an adult to drink 2 liters of water a day and let's say an average english family has four adults that get all their daily liquid intake from the home tap (safely overestimating, I think you'll agree), that's £7.60 a year. I'm sticking with "almost free".

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