Issues At Meets

– Someone brought in an external food source to Caribou

– People not leaving when an establishment is on or past closing time

To touch on the first point…I was getting something at Caribou and glanced over at one table and noticed this.  Someone brought in a food item of their own and said item is NOT something sold at Caribou…I briefly spoke with that person and the night went on.  When you are at a place of business like Caribou and other places, please be courteous and purchase food from said place of business.  The food items, coffee, smoothies, etc are inexpensive and we need to be respectful.  If you are waiting to have a full meal, please venture over to Perkins, or get an item at Caribou to tied you over…

On the last point, when it was 9:00 I noticed a chunk of people still in Caribou…A couple of times I noticed some of the staff motioning for these people to move outside.  I decided to go in and kindly inquire if they need assistance getting them out (part of our group)…The staff member motioned towards wanting me to do so and I got them up and out.  This is pretty self-explanatory, Caribou closes at 9:00 so be mindful and try to be out 5-10 minutes prior.

I have made this post simply because I saw these as issues and I wanted to share them…No one is in any trouble nor am I pointing at anyone in this post.  I just want this to be seen so we can work on this moving forward.

Caribou, AppleBee’s, and elsewhere are not officially bi-weekly meet locations, but a majority us are at these places…This being said, we need to remember to be mature and respectful at these places of business.

Let’s work together on this.  If you notice someone come into Caribou or AppleBee’s and you notice they do not have anything, inquire on if they plan to get something.  This will be positive in the long run.

THANK YOU!

~ Drake M.

Oh well, I have no clue what is going on back where there are “people” since I’m stuck out in nowhere land.

Aerak wrote:

It’s incredibly rude and improper to bring any outside food or drink into a restaurant. They are operating a business – not a community center.

Twisted wrote:

And to tack on: Minimize your footprint.

By that I mean how much crap you have along and how much of a mess you created. Caribou is a coffee shop so the response should be “what footprint?” but I know how the business side feels -> they want to go home too! If it means getting out 20-30 minutes out sooner, giving ample time for them to properly clean and close, do it!

They either are spending that time cleaning or closing the doors for the morning crew to deal with. and that will irk anyone!

Very agree. Imagine for a moment that you’re the coffee shop. From a financial perspective, the best scenario is that a customer comes in, buys a drink (or several) and then leaves. This ties up the staff for a minimal amount of time, doesn’t use any space, and doesn’t require any additional maintenance/cleaning after the fact.

While the space does invite congregation, it’s clearly designed for smaller groups. It’s critical to realize that we’re stressing their infrastructure simply by being there, en masse, for hours at a time. Doing so means a lack of space for other paying customers, so the least we can do is throw some money at Caribou and be respectful of the people and space for tolerating our presence.

Seriously though, money talks. If you, as a business owner/manager/etc, could see that your income was lower when a particular group was at your business, would you want them to stick around?

TL;DR:
– buy things at wherever you are
– don’t take up all the space
– don’t make a mess
– be nice to employees (this includes leaving before closing)
– be nice to everyone else