My Buddy Martha

Some baristas wait a lifetime for the experience I had today; I guess I’m just lucky. One Ms. Martha Stewart came by to see me at work today. So we’re pretty much BFFs now. She and her entourage stopped in for an afternoon pick-me-up on the way to the airport after a day in Rochester.

I saw the previews for that made for TV movie about Martha a few years ago and I have to say she not anything like that. She actually was really nice, joked with me for a few minutes, and paid for her whole group (yes, I held the credit card of a woman once estimated to be worth over a billion dollars). My fellow baristas and I provided the group with the same legendary service that we would anyone at Starbucks, but we certainly weren’t falling all over ourselves to make a big deal about her. After I told her, “no, we don’t have any ice cream to pour your latte over,” one of her peons hinted that maybe I could go to the ice cream place two doors down and get some, and the others then made it a point to call her “Martha” a lot. She was fine with me not fetching her some ice cream and even gave me some suggestions about what I might do with the extra espresso. This is more or less the recipe that she suggested for me.

It was surreal to have some one so well known in front of me, engaged in friendly conversation for a good ten minutes, but I certainly didn’t wet myself or anything. I’m having a lot of fun telling people about it and I our regulars get a kick out of it.

The question everyone has asked me is “What does Martha Stewart drink at Starbucks?” Well, I’m reluctant to tell you, because honestly we probably wouldn’t do this for anyone who wasn’t Martha, so you have to promise me to not go in and start ordering it all the time. Ready??? She had us make her a tall cappuccino (one shot of espresso, half steam milk and half milk foam), and then she had us pour it over ice in a grande cold cup. (Originally she first asked for it to be poured over coffee ice cream.) I helped her refine exactly what she wanted (I didn’t want to be the one responsible for messing her drink up), and Mike made it to order so perfectly she was actually really excited and told him that it looked wonderful.

I'm not really one for autographs (except for the time in sixth grade when I went to the House of Guitars to get Poison to sign my cassette tape of their album Talk Dirty to Me), but I do wish I had her sign my green apron. That would be really cool to have. Oh well, it is a fun story about my time at Starbucks anyway. If you would like to touch the hand that touched Martha, it will cost you $1.00. Leave a comment and we'll work out the details. All proceeds will benefit the Angie iPOD Fund.