I once worked at a coffee shop.

It was the kind of place that had a bumper sticker on the counter that read, Friends Don’t Let Friends Drink Starbucks.

But to be honest, a few months into the job, I felt wistful for the corporate order of a coffee chain, a place that got regularly scheduled dairy deliveries.

The independent coffee shop I worked for wasn’t the kind of place that got dairy deliveries. If we ran out of milk, a barista would grab cash from the register and run across the strip mall to Walgreens. Other things required a drive to Smart & Final.

If I opened the shop at 6 to find I was out of half and half, the next barista wasn’t scheduled to start ‘til 10. I am only a little ashamed to say I would put whole milk in the half and half pitcher to avoid the greater shame of saying, I’m sorry, we’re out of half and half, for four hours straight.

And I kept a poker face, even when my coffee shop crush gave me side-eye as he stirred his medium medium roast coffee.

His name was Matthew, which I knew from reading it off his credit card.

And the proper barista term for a customer you have a crush on is a crush-tomer.

I told all the other baristas I liked him. I’d try to strike up conversation when he ordered and learned he was working on his master’s thesis.

One hot summer day, I was working alone and he was the only customer in the store. I felt like there was a friendly dynamic between us at that point, but the problem was that we were out of ice. With a San Diego location on a road that led straight to the ocean, we got a lot of people coming in for iced coffee or iced tea, and it’s a little awkward to say, I can give you that drink cold but it won’t have ice.

So I wound up my nerve and I said to Matthew, can you watch the shop for five minutes while I run to Walgreens for ice? I think he nodded, and I fast-walked through the strip mall. When I got back with a 16-pound bag of ice, everything was as I left it, with the addition of one person waiting in line.

Why didn’t I ask Matthew to get the ice? Life’s great mysteries.

It wasn’t just ice and dairy we’d run out of. Our menu had panini sandwiches, wraps, bagels, and croissants. If we were out of panini bread, we could offer to make the same sandwich on a croissant, or even a bagel. Of the bagels, we’d run out of sesame and everything first. But there was always a six count bag of blueberry bagels in the deep freeze.

When someone ordered a bagel, I would ask, would you like that toasted? If they said no, I would say, Are you sure? If they insisted on an untoasted bagel, I would bag it up to go, and hand it to them, praying they’d be a few miles away in their car by the time they took a bite. If they had the nerve to sit down to eat it in store, I would shield my gaze for the remainder of their visit.

One time we did run out of all breads, including bagels.

I asked my favorite coworker Sabrina, What am I supposed to say when someone orders a sandwich? “I’m sorry, we’re out of bread. But if you’d like I can make you that caprese on a banana nut muffin?”

Speaking of muffins. These would be delivered from a bakery in a big donut box, and your job was to wrap them in plastic wrap, squeezing out the air and sealing them tight. A woman once came to the counter and asked if we had day-old pastries for half off. I had to stifle a laugh and stop myself from saying, “I’m sorry, ma’am, these muffins are at least a week old and they’re still full price.”

My lowest moment was the week we ran out of hot lids. Hot lids are the lids that fit on the hot beverage cups. The ones sold at Smart & Final didn’t fit our cups. So we really did have to wait for a delivery. As people stopped in on their morning commute, I’d have to say, I can give you that medium coffee, but I don’t have a lid. I’ll never forget the man who responded, “But you’re a coffee shop,” as I hung my head and said, yes.

You might have caught on by now that lack of inventory was a nuisance. There was one other shortage.

A coworker swung by one Friday to pick up her paycheck even though it was her day off. I asked why she went out of her way. She told me she was going to the credit union across the parking lot to cash it immediately. Because, of the five or so baristas who worked there, whoever deposited their paycheck last ran the risk of the check bouncing. It happened to me more than once.

The problem wasn’t actually that the coffee shop was short on cash. Our closing duty for involved stealing a deposit envelope from the Wells Fargo ATM, counting out the extra cash, writing the date and amount on the outside, and sealing the envelope. Then, it was placed in the unlocked drawer under the panini grill.

The cafe owner also worked at a hair salon and sometimes weeks of envelopes would pile up. So it wasn’t that we didn’t have cash, it just hadn’t been deposited.

At this point you might think everything at the coffee shop was dysfunctional, but I will say that we got a lot of compliments on our iced coffee. And we had a unique process for making it. Do you want me to tell you? Ok.

At the end of the night, the closing barista would pour the leftover coffee into a pitcher. Then, the pitcher was placed inside the refrigerator. Iced coffee.

Near the end of my second summer at the coffee shop, my crush-tomer came in for a breakfast sandwich. He’d finished his thesis. He was on his way to his first real job. And I think he was finally ready to ask me out.

But I’d already set my last day, and I was getting ready to move cross-country for graduate school.

I’ll never know what might have happened between me and Matthew, but I do know that if a barista asks if I want something toasted, I always say yes.

This story was originally performed at The Sea Quill, a monthly literary open mic I co-host, on April 8, 2026.

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