Find A Deal If you are a Real Coffee-Lover
People might have a hard time finding parking in downtown, but there is no shortage of places to buy a cup of joe. The trick is finding the best price in town.
For those who don't mind adding another card to their wallet, several coffee sellers offer a free cup after a certain number of purchases. These frequent-buyer plans come and go, and are not always advertised.
Most Dunkin' Donuts franchises offer such programs, but special deals are no longer offered at the chain's (past employees abused the power of the flower-shaped punch, used to indicate a coffee purchase, by notching their friends' coffee-club cards at will; after the forged cards became apparent, the program was discontinued).
Frequent coffee customers can find deals at the McDonald's offering the sixth cup. Some offers the ninth cup free. And another get their 11th cup on the house.
An untouched pack of coffee buyer cards has sat on a shelf above the cash register: "They don't want to fiddle around with cards," said a coffee-shop woman of her customers. "Nobody even knows it's there."
Despite having the cards, there is a place that doesn't plan to distribute them. Instead, the owner has her own informal guarantee: if the house blend runs out, she offers a free cup of flavored coffee.
Another informal coffee deal exists at a place in Burlington: if you have a random item, the coffee house's owner, Lee Anderson, might be in the mood to barter. In exchange for cups of his French-press, an organic coffee, Anderson has traded for a studio monitor, plumbing and electrical work, a commercial refrigerator and "a bunch of long-stem spoons."
The refrigerator trade cost him $150 worth of coffee. The spoons, just a cup. "I'm not a junk collector," he said. "I don't sit here and negotiate the value of something." But Anderson admits it is not uncommon for him to make a deal with customers, including rewarding the occasional patron with a cup of coffee for running an errand for him.
Other deals involve purchasing a particular mug to qualify for discounts. Bruegger's Bagel Bakery sells $99 travel mugs that entitle coffee addicts to "free" coffee for the calendar year. If a customer normally buys one large coffee a day, the mug pays for itself in roughly 60 days.
In conclusion here are the words of a woman who owns another coffee-shop, she says, "I think that the market is probably big enough for all of us. Coffee is one of those things that people really like." And she is definitely right.
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