I wish Doi Tung operated more cafes in central Bangkok. (The company is part of the development project started by the Princess Mother in 1988 to help hilltribe farmers in northern Thailand.) When the Doi Tung outlet at TCDC closed last year I lost the only super friendly--and super quiet--meeting place in the Sukhumvit area .
The Doi Tung cafe next to Entrance #1 at Chatuchak Weekend Market heaves with thirsty shoppers on weekends yet the staff manage to remain eternally charming. Go once or twice and they'll remember your coffee proclivities forever. An iced Americano and a chocolate cookie have become as integral to my weekly Chatuchak pilgrimages as last week's fresh-off-the-Thai-Airways-plane Economist magazine and whatever secondhand togs I can unearth.
The strong coffee makes a perfect counterpoint to the crumbly dry cookies with their subtle, barely discernible chocolate flavor. I normally avoid sweets, but these are so non-gourmet in every aspect that I cat eat one or two without feeling guilty.
I get to the market by 1 or 2 pm on Saturday and always make a beeline to Doi Tung for my coffee/cookie fix. Lately, however, the chocolate cookies have been sold out by then. The sweet smiling cashier always apologizes profusely and offers one of the many coffee-flavored cookies still available. (Clearly I'm not the only customer who prefers drinking real coffee to eating pseudo coffee biscuits.)
"If head office knows the chocolate cookies are the most popular, why don't they just stock more of them?" I frustratedly asked the cashier for a few weeks until I stopped the futile gesture. Of course she couldn't possibly be expected to know or care about her company's marketing strategy. Besides, if the Doi Tung owners didn't capitalize on the popularity of their cafes and open more branches, they were probably equally oblivious to the supply and demand issues of chocolate cookies.
The solution to eliminating my frustration at not getting a chocolate cookie was simply to stop wanting one. I lowered my expectations and deleted the item from my mental menu. End of story, thought I.
Last week I got to the market at 3 pm on Sunday instead of Saturday. As I approached the counter to order the Americano, the cashier walked off for a second. She reappeared proudly proffering the two chocolate cookies she'd put aside for me on Saturday morning! Now THAT's service! She could teach her bosses a thing or twenty about customer relations.
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