[1]: http://www.jeepish.com/2006/03/28/simpsons-live/

Hat tip to Jeep who posted on [this][1] today. So funny! :)

[1]: http://www.forbes.com/finance/2005/09/23/cariboucoffee-IPO-equities-cx_sr_0923ipooutlook.html
[2]: http://www.cariboucoffee.com/aboutus/ownership.asp
[3]: http://www.ghirardelli.com/products_hotchoc2.html

I used to be a huge fan of Caribou Coffee mochas. I drank them for years. I shunned the offerings of others and learned where all the Caribous were on my various paths of travel. Fun decor. Usually nice staff. I have two Caribou thermoses (thermosi?) and a Caribou travel mug. I had Caribou gift cards. I drank their mochas frequently.

I think [their IPO][1] wrecked everything.

A few years ago, Helen was chatting it up with a Caribou employee and she got the recipe for their mochas (which it seemed wasn’t treated as any kind of secret). The key was (IMO) the chocolate. [Ghiradelli][3]. Delicious. We now occassionally make them at home.

But a while ago I started to notice their mochas weren’t very good. Seemed weak. Sometimes even bitter. I would always pass it off as maybe an inexperienced employee. But it kept happening. All new Caribous were like that, and slowly the old reliable ones become so, too. Then we found out (through another conversation) that they’d changed the chocolate. And a few weeks later was the IPO.

Why do I link the two? Because I just think it makes a very plausible story.

When a company is going to go IPO, their bigwigs travel all over the country or world speaking to potential investors. They want to impress upon the investors one thing in particular: the value of, and thus profit potential of, their company. So I think that to help the numbers look even better, they switched to a cheaper chocolate. Saving a penny or two per mocha could be very significant. I can just imagine the negotiations with Ghiradelli: “Listen, we need you to lower your price, but when we go IPO, we’re going to expand so much that you’ll make it back in volume.” Obviously, no deal.

Maybe they changed for some other reason. They are sensitive to the special Islamic requirements of their [majority investor][2], so maybe there was something there. But for whatever reason, they changed their mochas. For the worse.

I never go there now – even if I’m craving one – because I will be disappointed. I avoid them.

When I spend $4 for a coffee, I expect it to be tasty and reliably so. Caribou Coffee was once always that. It is now never that.

I usually go to select smaller shops now: Java Drive, Cupcake. Second teir, I’ll go to Starbucks. They are not the tastiest, but they are reliable.

Of course, Caribou Coffee is doing just fine without our $50-ish per month. But it’s kind of disappointing to not be able to do business with a home-grown Minnesota company I used to love.

[1]: http://kpmartin.www62.a2hosting.com/wp-content/uploads/2006/03/deicing.jpg
[2]: http://kpmartin.www62.a2hosting.com/wp-content/uploads/2006/03/fog.jpg
[3]: http://kpmartin.www62.a2hosting.com/wp-content/uploads/2006/03/abovethefog.jpg
[4]: http://kpmartin.www62.a2hosting.com/wp-content/uploads/2006/03/legolandgate.jpg
[5]: http://kpmartin.www62.a2hosting.com/wp-content/uploads/2006/03/darthandr2.jpg
[6]: http://kpmartin.www62.a2hosting.com/wp-content/uploads/2006/03/volvolegoland.jpg

The flight went well. The family dropped my off and I skillfully navigated the security checkpoint. A pleasant change from last time’s minor fiasco of not being able to get my double-knotted shoes untied.

We left a little late because [these creatures][1] needed to do de-icing. It was a cold, humid day. We’d received an inch of snow in about 45 minutes earlier that morning. We got on to the runway, and then immediately got off. The pilot said we’d been ordered onto the runway too close to the time a plane was to land on the same runway. They landed with a minute of our leaving the runway. Yikes!

We took off. Very quickly fog obscured, and then eliminated, the scenery. Nothing but [the wing and engine floating in white][2]. For an uncomfortably long time. And finally we [broke out of it][3]. Ahh.

We went over the Rockies, but it was nighttime, so there was nothing to see. Hopefully I’ll see more on the afternoon return flight.

Soon I’ll need to go track down the shuttle that the concierge, Josh, scheduled for me. I was dreading tracking down transportation to Carlsbad. I told him he was my hero for getting it taken care of. He seemed a little taken aback by that.

**The next day:** Well, the day’s meetings are over and I’m sitting in the hotel’s attached Karl Strauss restaurant, where it seems there’s a particular physical qualification for employment. Oh! A waiter (who was exempt from the qualification) just brought me my Ceasar. It looks like a fish. Well, half a fish. I wish I had my camera.

I walked over to [Legoland][4] late this afternoon. Josh the concierge told me to walk down the sidewalk past the big entrance to the “secret” door in the bushes. It’s actually just the hotel’s special entrance, but it had the feel of inside information. Legoland had just closed, but the security guard let me in to poke around a little and buy some stuff. I was able to catch Darth Vader doing a little [practice sparring][5] to R2D2’s amusement. And leaving I saw a novel [Volvo promotion][6].

My fish and chips are here already. I guess she wants to turn this table. She has no idea how long I can nurse a pint of stout. Back in a few.

Well, that was good. I haven’t eaten all day, so I went at it pretty hard: mothers had to cover the eyes of their weeping children as they hurried them out of the restaurant. OK, only in my imagination. The fish and chips weren’t quite Brit’s Pub good, but still good. I de-boned the caesar and it was OK. It was romaine. I prefer spinach.

Well, I’m off to the sauna. Josh told me where that was, too. Josh has been very helpful. I’m a very needy guest. He even gave me a free breakfast coupon for this restaurant, so I guess I’ll be back in the morning. It’ll beat orange juice and bagels.