Right in the heart of the Cherry Creek district in Denver you’ll find a coffee shop called Aviano. Talk about ‘trendy’. This joint is hipster doofus central. The Baristas fit the archetypical image of today’s fashion forward coffee house employee. Beards, vests, sleeve tattoos, and hats tilted at a jaunty angle. The place was packed, and with pour-overs and espressos it took a while to even get a drink ordered. Which of course was my standard Americano. This is where the wheels came off the cart a bit. I had asked for a ‘cup for here’ apparently he heard ‘cup to go’, and that’s what my drink was prepared in. When I pointed that out the guy looks at me like I’m nuts and didn’t really know what to do. Another employee hastily grabbed a ceramic cup and unceremoniously dumped the contents of the paper cup into it, which effectively ruined the nice crema. I didn’t say anything but I was kind of taken aback.
What I thought should have happened is that they should have offered to remake it properly. I would have said that they could just pour into a proper cup and accepted it as the appropriate gesture. But they didn’t even offer. A definite lack of understanding and character for sure. To add insult to injury the paper cup contained slightly more that would fit in the ceramic cup. So it was filled right to the brim. At least the head doofus told one of the worker doofuses’ to carry the cup to my seat. Of course coffee was slopping over onto the saucer making a mess. They brought lots of napkins to sop it up.
The coffee was standard issue Intelligentsia. Tasty, but nothing special or extraordinary. I couldn’t get connected to their Wi-Fi either, so what I thought was going to be a fun experience turned into be a bit underwhelming.
To sum up the experience…the space was very nice, the coffee unremarkable, and the service lacking.