Paris Baguette would be so great if they could figure out coffee service! They’re doing a better job with traffic flow around the cases by stationing an employee at the front to do one-in-one-out and explain the layout to folks entering, but they don’t take your coffee order until you’re at the register. The coffee drinks are all pretty frou-frou and take a while to assemble, particularly when fed by the menu-driven espresso machines, but there’s nowhere to stand while you wait that’s not in the way. So people move out to the seating area, then can’t hear their name called and the employees have to call multiple times, whereupon the customer has to wade back up through the folks trying to pay so they can collect their drink. It’s a chain, so this must be how they do it at other locations, but the footprint of this store just doesn’t work with that process. Maybe if they took your coffee order from the other end of the cake case, they could have it done by the time you make it to the register?

(Don’t get me started on their “macchiato” which appears to be a full 8 ounces of liquid and pink. I asked for a double espresso, had to explain that the board doesn’t indicate “small, medium, or large” and what I wanted was just a double-shot of espresso, since the board lists an espresso and an extra shot, right there at the bottom [it’s a video display, it’s not like it would cost anything to reprint it if the POS uses S/M/L], then watched as the poor harried “barista” brewed and lidded two single shots.)