Universal Hub - coffee

Australian coffee, meat pies coming to North Station area

adamg — Wed, 01 May 2013 13:41:05 +0000

Limeduck reports the Cuppacoffee being built on what used to be a Merrimac Street parking lot is close to opening.

The man who replaces Scrabble tiles

adamg — Mon, 11 Mar 2013 11:18:46 +0000

Limeduck continues his one-man campaign to ensure no coffeehouse Scrabble set goes without letters for long.

Donut and Donuts and giraffe

adamg — Mon, 18 Feb 2013 13:26:08 +0000

Yesterday was Drive Aimlessly through Quincy Day here at Chez Universal Hub. We couldn't help but stop to admire the donut shop with the best name ever in the history of donuts, on Hancock Street, and the 15-foot-tall giraffe made entirely of car bumpers outside this mall at Burgin Parkway and Granite Street.

Guys, you want the Panera down by City Hall

adamg — Tue, 29 Jan 2013 12:35:21 +0000

The Daily Free Press reports two guys waltzed into the Panera Bread on Comm. Ave. by St. Paul Street on Tuesday and "refilled their non-Panera Bread mugs with coffee and refused to pay."

Hipsters, Dot rats not meant to interact

adamg — Sat, 29 Dec 2012 21:31:04 +0000

If you're one of those people who thinks Starbucks would be much improved if all the hipsters disappeared, you'll love this karmic post.

America may run on Dunkin', but the Orange Line doesn't

adamg — Mon, 19 Nov 2012 14:28:07 +0000

Around 8:45 a.m, Susan Anderson tweeted:

The Orange Line is seriously standing by "due to a coffee spill that needs to be cleaned up." ... At least it made for a nice-smelling train first thing in the morning...

The coffee break happened after incoming T General Manager Beverly Scott rode the line from a chat session with commuters at North Station to a chat session with commuters at Back Bay. The T posted a photo of her and soon-to-be boss Richard Davey on the Orange Line. Michael Ratty looked at the photo and asked:

Why isn't Beverly Scott drinking a Dunkin Donuts coffee like Davey? Not a good way to endear yourself to Boston.

Also, while the Orange Line ran perfectly (and strangely emptily) on her trip, commuters on the Red Line and the Needham Line got to experience your basic Monday-morning T delays.

H/t Prairie Rose Clayton for the headline.

Brookline can have his Styrofoam Dunk's cup when they pry it from his cold, dead hands

adamg — Thu, 15 Nov 2012 10:49:00 +0000

John Carroll reports that when Brookline's ban on styrofoam food containers goes into effect, he'll just start buying his medium Dunkin' Donuts coffee elsewhere:

The hardworking staff has no kids so, to be honest, we don’t care as much as Brookline goo-goos might about the environmental effects of styrofoam. Add to that, the Dunkin’ Donuts medium coffee cup stands as one of the design triumphs of our era.

Court: Starbucks has no grounds to let supervisors share in barista tips

adamg — Sat, 10 Nov 2012 04:47:28 +0000

A federal appeals court ruled today Starbucks owes Massachusetts baristas more than $14 million for tips that were shared with supervisors between 2005 and 2011, because state law bars managers from dipping into the tip jar.

Starbucks tried to pour cold water on a class-action suit on behalf of more than 11,000 former and current baristas by arguing that "shift supervisors" weren't really managers because they mostly did the same work as baristas and so were entitled to the perk of sharing in pooled tips collected from customers.

But in a scalding decision, the US Court of Appeals for the First Circuit in Boston told Starbucks that the Massachusetts tip law is about as explicit as can be that managers are not allowed to share in tips and that shift supervisors are, indeed, managers: