I have complained in a few prior posts about the quality of coffee that auto maintenance places offer to the people sitting around in their cramped and uncomfortable waiting rooms. It seems like spending a few extra bucks for a decent coffee machine and decent coffee is pretty low-hanging fruit, as far as things you can do to keep customers happy while you're working on their car.

I went to a local Jiffy Lube recently to get my oil changed. I've been there three or four times in the past, but this time, there was a new coffee machine sitting in the corner:



This contraption takes little single plastic packaged cups of group coffee. You put one in the top, put a cup under the spout, hit brew, and it spits out a small cup of freshly brewed coffee. The grounds weren't top of the line, and it took me a few minutes to figure out how to actually use the damn machine (there weren't instructions, so I just started pushing buttons half expecting to break it.) But I'm super glad they decided to swap out the old swill-filled carafe for the new offering. I sat there in the waiting room for the 20 minutes the oil change took, happily reading and sipping my coffee.

(In case you're wondering, more than one person in the waiting room gave me a strange look for taking a picture of the coffee machine with my phone.)