Coffee Shop Talk - Week 1: Caribou Coffee, Hyvee

Week one we decided to try Caribou Coffee located in one of the grocery stores in town called Hyvee. I had been to Caribou Coffee once before in my life. Quite a few years ago I went to one in St. Louis to meet up with an ex-boyfriend to catch up and try to bring closure to the end of our relationship. It didn’t go very well. It was not exactly a pleasant experience and it left a bad taste in my mouth for Caribou! I’m happy to report this experience was MUCH different! J

In my opinion, the best aspect of this coffee shop was the friendliness of staff and the variety of drinks. Right when I walked around the corner to its location, the barista greeted me and started talking to me about the different seasonal coffees they offered. At first, I thought it was your prototypical Starbucks-esque coffeeshop (Not knocking Starbucks – I’m a huge fan!), with drinks like pumpkin spice, peppermint mocha and salted caramel. After that she told me about the Caribou signature drinks, which included Berry White (raspberry vanilla), Campfire (chocolate with marshmallow cream), Ho Ho Mint (chocolate and mint), and Turtle, plus a variety of Lite lattes in those signature and original flavors! Additionally, one of my favorite aspects of Caribou was your ability to choose what type of chocolate they used in your drink. Not only did they have milk and white chocolate, but they also had dark chocolate. Maybe I am just naïve and many coffee shops have these drinks (or at least the capability to make these drinks), but I was impressed! I LOVE s’mores, so I went with the Campfire with milk chocolate. See pictures below. It was DELICIOUS. Of course it was extremely sweet, but I like sweets.

As for the cleanliness and ambiance of the store, it was what you would expect of a coffee shop located in a busy grocery store. They had a couple of tables and chairs, but it was not cozy and welcoming and there was no fireplace crackling to add to the experience. It was pretty distracting having the cashiers just 20 feet away and the main doors directly behind us. Let’s just say I would not suggest having a deep and personal conversation at this location! However, for all the negatives of having a coffee shop in a grocery store, the location ended up giving us some comic relief. There was one man in particular that walked into the store and hopped on to a mobile cart. He started driving through the tiny coffee shop (almost crashing into the car seat that held Stefanie’s baby several times!) and just talking with the barista. He left as quickly as he came, but several minutes later, he was back. This time, the basket of his cart was FILLED with bags and bags of grapes! All piled up on top of each other. Again, he drove through the coffee shop with his grapes, and again, had several near-misses with the baby. But shortly thereafter he drove off. A very short time went by when I glanced to the exit to my left and I saw the man with the mobile cart walking out of the store. No need for a mobile cart. And not one bag of grapes in tow. Not sure what that was all about but we thought it was pretty funny!

Overall, I really enjoyed our first Coffee Shop Talk experience! My ratings on a scale of 1 to 5 for this location are below:

Drink: Campfire

Flavor: 4

Service: 5

Cleanliness: 3

Ambiance: 1

I would definitely hit this place up for a great fancy latte, but I would not go there to have a serious chat or expect to be able to concentrate while reading or studying.

Stefanie's Rating

Drink: Medium Coffee with 3 creams and 3 sugars

Flavor: 3

Service: 5

Cleanliness: 3

Ambiance: 2

Comments: I found the coffee to be a little burnt tasting, bitter.  But I definitely loved that they offered free refills!

 

Thanks for reading and we look forward to updating you with next’s week stop:

Thirty Thirty Coffee with Stefanie