Our Labrador Sunny is with pups. This was intentional but we’re not in the breeder business. We wanted another dog to keep Sunny company now that Mary is getting back on her feet and ready to spend more time in the retail shops. It’s been a long season and we’re all looking forward to seeing her smiling face and ‘sunny’ personality to shine bright once again. Our younger staff will benefit greatly from her example on how to treat people in general but certainly customers spending hard earned resources in our establishments. It’s frighteningly easy to forget everyone walks through the door by choice. We need to always honor that choice by giving our best in service and quality, every time. It’s what separates just okay from good and good from great. We don’t always achieve this goal; it’s a never-ending pursuit much like the elusive perfect cup of coffee. The results, however, are never more obvious when the stores are packed to the walls in early January. We’re very blessed.

It’s my job to monitor review platforms like Yelp, Square and Google Business while taking deep breaths to fortify patience in responding to the few malcontent yahoos posting smear campaigns just because they can. Wisdom says let it go but sometimes hard-earned patience is not enough to hold my tongue. I’m not proud when unloading on computer-coward sucker-punchers but it sure feels good. One day I’ll certainly answer for this smallness but until then cheap shots will not go unanswered. Wouldn’t simply asking for a manager to make things right be a better way to address a grievance? Yes, of course, but making things right is secondary to the bitter-fix of knowing thousands of people will hear them. What a sad brand of soul.

When Yelp calls to sell me advertising, I ask them why we should subsidize a platform allowing arbitrary libel without consequence? Constructive criticism is valuable feedback. Unfettered ranting motivated by emotional/mental instability or old-fashioned impossibility to please, is another. The sales person never has an answer.

We manage busy shops. Lines out the door and no place to sit are not uncommon. People are still compelled to come and share time and resource with us for reasons beyond good coffee and food.

There is a scene in the movie Field of Dreams where James Earl Jones tells Kevin Costner, an Iowa farmer under great financial pressure, to sell his magical corn fields, that fans of America’s greatest pastime will come with cash in hand to watch the magic happen…not even completely understanding why.

In our own inauspicious beginnings, some folks would walk through the doors not for the coffee but for a small ray of Mary Sunshine. We are all unconsciously driven to occupy spaces of comfort and lightness of spirit. We’re drawn to the soft seams connecting rougher patchwork quilts of time and experience because we seek rest and respite from the gravity of imperfection. Costner’s field of dreams offered treasured moments of bliss and we endeavor to do the same, sans the haunting genius of baseball’s gloried past.

A generation has passed and we begin another. Kids we employed, some now middle-aged adults, are shaping the world. Each one took with them something of great intrinsic value. This ultimately is why we do what we do. Joyless critics could never understand.

For what it’s worth, if you’re a chronic ‘reviewer’ with half your postings one and two-star hit-jobs, the problem lies with you. Maybe consider an honest review on your own character? Who knows, maybe one day you’ll actually see the real magic playing out right before your eyes and realize what’s been missing?

Speaking of real magic, we now have eight of the cutest, fattest, sweetest, most Mary-loved-on corn-silk yellow and silver-white Lab pups ever born. If interested, please direct message us on our GoodBean Facebook or Instagram feed. We’re also gifting a couple of these precious pups to the right homes. If this might be your family, we’d love to hear from you.