There was this thing in Melbourne cafes for a while (and maybe still, I'm not in Melbourne any more), where you would walk in and order your usual from other cafes "a large Flat White" and the barista would go "We only make coffee in one size".
At which point I would walk out and go to another cafe. The same experience, "I want coffee in a certain way", "we know better than you and will only serve you coffee how we like to make coffee"
There are thousands of coffee shops of various calibres, so I'm not even remotely suprised that two people could have different experiences. I definitely had it happen at more than one coffee shop. It definitely wasn't all of them, or even a majority. For example:
> 9. Market Lane Coffee: Queen Victoria Market
> The only milk baristas serve is full fat cow’s milk, the coffee only comes in one size, you have to put your own lid on your takeaway, a cappuccino or latte costs $4.80, and there is always, always a line. The seasonal blend offers a full-bodied, hazelnut-heavy cup with apple undertones.[1]
That is not the one I remember it happening at, but it serves to illustrate. The other thing that used to happen sometimes is "We only use full-fat milk". I hadn't remembered that until I tried finding a reference for the cup sizes.
I have heard that reason. It fals apart when you take your own Keep Cup (etc) and it's still a problem. The problem with having an amazing coffee culture is that you end up with a bunch of coffee shops that think they know better than the customer.
If they want to run their businesses like that, that's fine. No objection. I'm sure they'll find plenty of customers. It might even be me depending on how desperate I am. But it's accepting that it's not going to work for a segment of their potential market.
Another example is cash-only/card-only, the former of which I now find much more obnoxious. That's a decision they're allowed to take, but it removes a segment of customers (it's different to the "Google knowing better" in the original post). I will likely not go back to a place that's cash only, because I don't usually carry cash any more.
Depending on the country you can walk into an office supply store and walk out with a cheap terminal (Square, SumUp, etc) that will allow you to take payments so it's nowhere near the "6 weeks wait and a merchant bank account" that it was when card payments were in their early years. Which means it's just lazy. It's lazy and it's pushing that laziness onto your customers, who have to go to the ATM.
Disclaimer: This varies country to country. In germany it's much more common to have to pay cash, because they have some long term, anti-tracking hang-up that go back to the cold war (at least that's my understanding).
At which point I would walk out and go to another cafe. The same experience, "I want coffee in a certain way", "we know better than you and will only serve you coffee how we like to make coffee"