For three years I worked a block away from a Fourbucks Starbucks. It was an occasional indulgence when I didn’t feel like dealing with the office coffee machine. Now I work in a place with no coffee machine and no good options nearby. If I want to partake of the evil bean at work my only choice is to bring it there, and this has illustrated a point I was only dimly aware of when coffee was little more than an elevator ride away:
Starbucks cup lids suck.
Those lids turn every cup of coffee into a dribble cup. I noticed when I walked for coffee that I always seemed to spill some, but now that I’m driving it’s practically impossible to transport coffee without making a mess. I can rarely drink these things while standing still without at least some small amount of coffee escaping through some portion of the lid that is not the suck hole.
I think what really made me notice was a trip to Dunkin Donuts. Whoever makes those lids has it right. The roads are broken up around my work and I can still drive them fairly aggressively and be absolutely confident that not a single drop will escape the cup. Contrast that to Starbucks where I can’t even get out the door without licking coffee off of my hand.
As successful as Starbucks has been you’d think they could do a better job on something so fundamental to serving beverages.