vs. 
Recently (not too recently), the wife and I started drinking Chick-fil-a coffee. Not because of preference, but because they opened a restaurant closer to our house than the McDonald's. They opened this Chickfila basically across the street from where we live and right down the street from the kids' school. So, we drop the kiddos off in the morning for school and we stop by to sit, drink coffee and visit by 8am. It's quite convenient.
We used to drive to a McDonald's that was about 3-5 minutes down the road. It was actually pretty good coffee...way better than a plain coffee at Starbuck's and better than Chickfila. I'm not a long time coffee drinker but I do know tastes. I prefer to drink my coffee with about 3/4 coffee 1/4 milk or cream. But the McDonald's coffee we would drink, their "gourmet" coffee, had a good taste without milk or cream. I don't like to drink but I do occasionally sample coffee without milk or cream just to see how it actually tastes. The McDonald's coffee is "tasteful" but I still can't/don't/want to drink it without milk/cream. It's kind of nice to know though that I can stomach the taste without milk/cream if I absolutely had to though.
When we began visiting the Chickfila, it wasn't because we were displeased with the coffee at McDonald's. What attracted us, mainly the wife, is that they had Chikfila Minis. If it had this good breakfast and some decent coffee, then maybe we'd have a new place to cop a squat because the wife felt that the breakfast options at McDonald's were a little higher in calories.
The coffee turned out to be pretty good at Chickfila. It wasn't McDonald's coffee but it wasn't gross, overpriced or overrated like at Starbuck's or some other "fancy" places. We had basically become regulars, sitting and visiting before she or I had to go to work. Mainly enjoying the coffee along with individual or shared orders of the Minis. We enjoyed the Chickfila coffee for about a year now I guess but...it's gone bad.
One day a few months ago we noticed that it was tasting "different" but assumed it was just a bad batch. We had a few more "bad batches" over the next few visits. It was almost like they used pond water to make the coffee or they reused the grounds after the first run through (our cousins in Illinois do this and you can taste the difference between run 1 and run 2). I think after the 3rd or 5th bad tasting, we asked an employee...manager-in-training we think...and he said that he hadn't heard of any other complaints but he did know that they recently changed coffee machine vendors or something like that. We told him we have noticed a change for the worse since the vendor change but it must be just us if he hadn't heard of anyone else complaining.
We left it at that and went on our merry way. A few mornings later, a Saturday, we stopped by to get some breakfast and got sodas instead of coffee because we didn't want to waste our time and effort on shitty coffee again. We sat on the patio with the kids waiting for this parade to start and th same employee we asked about the coffee days before came out to tell us that he had found more information about the coffee. It turns out that the new vendor came to them and said there was an issue with the settings on the new coffee machines. He said they had someone come out and fix it so he believes the coffee should be back to normal.
A few mornings later, we found that he was wrong. He just happened to be on shift that morning and we told him that the coffee was still bad, bitter, and we would not be spending any more money on it. I told him that I put cream in my coffee and if I can taste the badness over it then it must be really bad.
So, long story short, I pretty much have gone back to making my own coffee at home. It's actually way cheaper but it was more of the atmosphere or feeling like the wife and I were hanging out together for a little bit every other day. We kind of miss it but we won't sip down another bad cup of coffee!
Going back to McDonald's is a little out of the wife's way as she would drop me off at work on her way to work. Going to McDonald's would put her already 5-10 minutes down the road so what would be the benefit of having to drag my ass back to drop me off at work? Starbucks was never really an option anymore as the regular cup of coffee is no better than buying the cheapest brand in the grocery store and brewing my own pot. It would cost more at Starbucks. I will occasionally go to Starbucks for their cafe white mocca (hot not iced) when I feel like blowing $5 on a drink instead of an entire meal.
I guess that's all I have to say about that.
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