An internet user shared a somewhat comical experience they had with a biker who walked into the coffee shop they worked at and demanded what amounted to be a coffee without coffee. The customer is always right tends to be true when the customer happens to be a group of leather-clad bikers.

So OP complied and gave them a tall, cold cup of sugar and cream, which is, firstly, disgusting and, secondly, not a cup of coffee in any way, shape, or form. Commenters had a field day laughing at the order and sharing similar experiences with customers with particularly bizarre coffee demands.

People can be pretty particular about their coffee orders even if they don’t quite understand what they are getting

Image credits: Pressmaster (not the actual photo)

An internet user shared a time a biker demanded what was essentially a cup of sugar and cream and wouldn’t take no for an answer

Image credits: Marinabars_photo (not the actual photo)

Image credits: revilo636

The customer is always right was never meant to be taken as law and creates more issues then it resolves

Image credits: Lisa Fotios (not the actual photo)

The, potentially misguided, idea that a customer is always right goes back to the early 20th century, when, reportedly, retail giants like Marshall Field and Selfridges’s Harry Gordon Selfridge implemented store-wide policies for staff that included taking customer complaints seriously and implementing returns for faulty items. At the time, this was a novel approach, as previously customers simply had to be careful. Due to its novelty, the idea of “the customer is always right,” took off in other industries, despite the fact that it was never meant to be taken seriously. However, some businesses made it a point of pride that they would entertain any idea that came into a customer’s head. In Germany, some restaurants informed their staff that “der Kunde ist König” (the customer is king,) while in Japan it went even further with the “the customer is a god” (okyakusama wa kamisama desu).

Even in 1914, business analysts believed this concept to be faulty, particularly when taken literally. Customers can be misinformed, dishonest, and downright abusive, as anyone who has worked in retail can attest to. Even worse, they might start asking for things that are impossible. From demanding a free meal for eating only half the food to wondering why they couldn’t pay for a sandwich that costs more than their entire bank balance, the internet is full of service industry stories that indicate that the customer is everything but right. Despite this, many buyers still believe that they are the king of the castle and walk into a store and know more about the business than the employees, because they are always right, ergo anything they say simply becomes true. And this takes us to OP’s story.

The options available to coffeeshop goers have grown exponentially in recent years

Image credits: Porapak Apichodilok (not the actual photo)

While modern consumers are absolutely spoiled when it comes to coffee options, this creates its own set of problems. Every new ingredient and style creates more and more permutations of drinks baristas are forced to make, some of which veer further and further from anything that might resemble coffee. And it’s not just the ingredients, it’s the sheer size of the drinks. A “classic” espresso cup is 60 milliliters or 2.02 fluid ounces. The biker ordered a “coffee” that was roughly twelve times larger, although it managed to have 100% less actual coffee in it. At this point, consumer-tier coffee culture is simply a free for all, where labels and nutrition have been thrown out of the window. Bec Howell, co-owner of Footscray cafe Small Graces has seen people demand skim milk, then add up to four sugars or more to the same cup. Others happily mix decaf with regular beans in some sort of primitive attempts at coffee alchemy.

The bottom line is, there exists a world where the biker’s order was completely intentional and he had just decided that sugar and cream were the best part of his morning cup, so why not cut coffee, the middleman? Internet users already regularly document the strange orders customers have and as food and beverage technology improves, we might be approaching a sort of paradigm shift, where getting a coffee doesn’t actually mean any coffee is involved. This might unlock new frontiers of beverages for people to enjoy, though woe to the baristas (if they will still even be called that) who will have to attend to every customer’s whim.

OP answered some reader questions and gave additional details

People also shared their own experiences with strange coffee orders

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