Posts tagged with "queequeg's" - Faerye Net

Music brings people together. Especially acoustic guitar.

2010-01-11T14:42:22+00:00

Ryan posted this link. Apparently one of the people stuck in the Newark airport during the security-breach scare last week was a guitarist, and he rallied the strangers around him to sing “Hey Jude”. It’s a short video, but it’s hard to deny its feel-good potency. Partly that’s the power of the Beatles, but I think it’s also just people singing together, one person bringing out an instrument and trying to make the situation better.

I used to work at…what did I call it here? Oh yes, Queequeg’s Qoffee Qasa. One night I was filling in away from my home Queequeg’s, at one of the busiest QQs in the district. This store wasn’t as matey as my usual store, due to size, location, and existence of a drive-through. A few hours into my shift, we got a call from my home store. Did we have power? Why yes, we did. Because they didn’t. Okay, they’ll send customers there. Call waiting — the next furthest store. Did we have power?

The power continued to fail across town, as if it were herding all the customers toward us and the biggest Queequeg’s, the 24-hour behemoth to the West. Customers came in swells. The drive-through Qrewmember reported power had gone out across the street, in all the apartment complexes up the block. Our logo was shining out like a lighthouse of warmth and comfort, and they were coming. Then the phone rang again. The 24-hour store had lost power.

I don’t remember those hours in great detail. I was on the register, trying to serve the mob as quickly and kindly as possible. I know we had a line that filled the entire store, that we ran out of white chocolate sauce, that all the power outlets were taken and people were setting up camp in our lobby until their own power came back on. What I remember most clearly is the spirit that emerged. Usually, if there were five people in front of a customer in line, that customer would get anxious, check his watch, fret and bark a little when he finally got to the front. Now, with fifty people in line, everyone was friendly and understanding. They took normal chocolate instead of white chocolate. They bought the next person in line’s drink. They left epic tips. And when I tell this story with more brevity — say, in three sentences or less — this is the detail I always mention: someone brought a guitar and played quietly in the corner for hours. We turned off the stereo and worked as hard as we could. We made fussy employee drinks for the 24-hour store’s six chilly Qrewmembers, who had to sit on the sidewalk outside their store, waiting for light. We worked past closing time.

No one sang, that I remember, but that dude in the corner with his guitar made it official: that wasn’t just a Queequeg’s, that night. That was a community. Music does that, Beatles or no.

Highway 101 has it in for me.

2008-06-13T23:45:26+00:00

I picked up a nail in my tire tonight. It was by no means obvious, but I think it happened on a short jaunt on 101 from Mt. View, where I was gaming with friends new and old, to the Queequeg’s Qoffee Qasa where I toil. It was not until the sign of the mighty Pequod, its sails emblazoned with the coffee bean, was extinguished and the doors of Queequeg’s were locked behind its weary employees that I saw the flat tire.

Previous misadventures, including several memorable hours stranded on the shoulder on a lofty freeway interchange (also tire-related), convinced me to pay the semi-yearly pittance for roadside assistance, and the truck appeared before my fellow Queequegger and I could budge the lugnuts. I took the long way home, via surface streets. But really, tires and 101 both have it in for me. And the two together? Oh lordy.

Unlike some fictional characters who masquerade as real people among us, I think I will celebrate my tire mishap with a patch or a new tire, followed closely by a mango-strawberry smoothie at Queequeg’s. Not a new sports car. That’s just how I roll. Slowly, cautiously, and under 55 miles per hour on a compact spare.

POOR man's latte?

2007-05-07T23:59:12+00:00

There’s a petty little custom I was taught at Queequeg’s Qoffee Qasa to call “the poor man’s latte”. Someone comes in and orders a few shots of espresso, but over ice in a big cup. He then fills the cup the rest of the way with half-and-half from the condiment bar, usually shielding it with his body because somehow he thinks the Queequeg Qrew doesn’t get precisely what he’s doing. He thus gets an iced breve latte for significantly less money.

Some people say, “Where’s the harm?” It’s worth debating, perhaps. It cheeses off the brewed coffee and americano customers (for whom the half-and-half is provided) to find the pitcher empty constantly because some yabbo took 16 ounces of it. It creates more labor for the Qrew to constantly replenish the condiment pitchers because of this (which probably, unless the company higher-ups are very clever, will eventually result in the brewed coffee prices going up.) It also signals an amazing lack of self-awareness (“I am totally the first person to think of this, and those Queequeggers have NO idea I’ve hoodwinked them!”) and self-respect. Really, guys, you aren’t Jean Valjean stealing a loaf of bread. You’re not Robin Hood stickin’ it to the man. You’re trying to get a fancy-ass espresso drink for cheap. How petty.

And in case anyone thinks, “Oh, they probably really can’t afford the drink they want! Poor bebbies!” I’d like to share my amazement. The other day a guy ordered a poor man’s latte in a particularly annoying way. He asked for straight shots of espresso with flavored syrup, then asked the Qrew-member at the handoff for a cup of ice; thus an extra cup was expended so he could feel as if he’d deceived the Qrew. At the condiment bar, he hid his drink with his body as he poured the shots and syrup over the ice and filled it with half-and-half. So wily!

Then he threw out the wasted cup and carried his drink to his Hummer H3.

I weep for humanity.

It's official...

2006-09-04T21:30:06+00:00

I hear one has no cred as a starving artist until one gets a day job, so I hastened out and got one. I now sling beans and brew at a coffee establishment that shall remain nameless. I am waiting for the cred to start rolling in!