It’s 6:45 a.m. at Starbucks in Fond du Lac, and the drive-thru window is spending more time open than closed.
The floor-to-ceiling windows in the front half of the store show the dark morning sky outside, permeated only by the headlights of commuters. The ridiculously loud coffee grinder keeps disrupting the calm acoustic music and the drink mixer constantly hums behind the counter.
The baristas know the majority of the customers, even recognizing their voices through the drive-thru speaker. Everyone gets a hearty “Good morning,” often followed by, “The usual?”
Only two customers have to look at the menu before they order, and only two other customers actually need to order their drinks; everyone else’s drinks are started the second they walk through the door. Most get their drinks and leave quickly; only one man stays long enough to eat his coffee cake. The four baristas, wearing all black underneath their green aprons, never stop moving.
One employee pushes through the swinging door carrying five dented one-gallon jugs of milk and slides them safely onto the counter. Another employee switches seamlessly between a soft but perky voice over the microphone for the drive-thru and a low cranky voice to complain to her coworkers about her allergies that are acting up.
Her voice doesn’t turn cheery all-around until she finishes her cup of coffee, today with a double shot of espresso. The rush at Starbucks is in full swing, and even the employees can’t survive it without a coffee of their own.
According to Caitlin Miller, a 21-year-old Starbucks employee, the busiest time at the coffee shop is from about 6:15 a.m. to 9 a.m., when she estimates they sell 10 to 30 gallons of plain coffee alone.
“All the customers before 6:30 a.m. are not quite awake and therefore are wretched,” Miller said. “They won’t talk to you, and if they do, they yell at you and usually haven’t brushed their teeth yet.”
Many people include Starbucks in their daily routine, stopping in at the same time for the same items each day.
“The company refers to the difference as ‘Bob’ and ‘Not Bob’ customers, but we try to learn their names,” Miller said. “Christi gets at least five or six venti Pike’s Peak Place Roast coffees with 2 1/2 inches of cream a day. Sherry, a homemaker, gets an iced, quad, venti, extra caramel on the bottom, extra caramel on top with whipped cream and extra caramel on top of the whipped cream caramel macchiato at least four times a day, which are $5.37 each. Those are just a couple examples of people who come through every day. The list goes on and on and on.”
To many people, coffee is an essential part of the day, especially in the morning.
Jeremy LaVigne, a 21-year-old UW-Oshkosh student, said he drinks four to eight cups of coffee each day.
“Occasionally I forget to self-medicate, but this is quite rare,” LaVigne said. “I’m a consistent man, you know, a man of principles.”
LaVigne said he’s somewhat antisocial without coffee in the morning, but he said going without coffee for a long period of time has more unfavorable effects: bitterness, hate and rage.
“That is, until I get sleepy,” LaVigne said.
Miller, who likes a quad, venti, non-fat, no-whip, extra hot white mocha when she isn’t working, has limited herself to 20 ounces of coffee a day.
“I used to drink coffee for about 18 hours a day,” Miller said. “If I go without caffeine for more than four days my hands start to shake. It’s sad, I know.”
“The longer I go without caffeine, the worse my headaches get,” Miller said. “After too long, it starts to make you feel like your eyeballs are going to burst. That makes me a little crabby.”
“Too much coffee can also have negative effects,” Miller said.
“I drank six 20-ounce cups, a 16-ounce latte and four shots of espresso in one day,” Miller said. “It made my chest hurt a little when I woke up the next day.”
During a coffee-drinking contest with a friend, LaVigne also experienced the effects of too much caffeine.
“I think we drank six to eight cups of coffee in about 45 minutes,” LaVigne said. “I sweated profusely, couldn’t sit still... I burned off most of my taste buds from drinking so much coffee.”
Miller, who has worked at Starbucks since June 2009, said she started drinking coffee when she was 9 years old.
“When my family would have get-togethers, we would always have coffee after dinner with dessert,” Miller said. “I wanted to try it because even when I was really little, I loved the way it smelled.”
Working at Starbucks has its advantages: Miller said she gets free coffee at work.
“I don’t really spend more than $5 a week on coffee now that I get free coffee while I work and free pounds of coffee to drink at home, but I used to spend about $200.”
Mike Altekruse, a staff psychologist at the UW-Oshkosh counseling center, said students have come to him with coffee addictions, though it is rare.
“Most people seem to be able to control their addictions to caffeine,” Altekruse said. “Many people are even able to stop and start what I would consider addictions to caffeine.”
Altekruse said the difference between being a coffee lover and a coffee addict is whether the person can function without it.
