How hard should it be to get a decent cup of coffee?

My biggest complaint about Little Rock so far?? The lack of good, easily accessible coffee shops. I honestly haven't had a good coffee experience since I've been here and I'm longing for my Rendezvous, Lakota and Cherry St Artisan - all excellent Columbia, MO coffee houses.

Now to be honest, I haven't been to a non-chain type of shop because I don't believe there is one where I live in West Little Rock, the upper scale part of the metro area that's kindof in the middle of nowhere. My first experience was a place just down the road. When I drove past it on the way to my apartment I was so excited thinking "hey, a coffee shop right down the road!" It's obviously a chain - not sure if it's just regional or not - but hey if they have good coffee and it's convenient, I can live with that for day to day purposes. I tried it last Sunday and I was waiting in a very short line I could see the baristas constantly rechecking the chart on how to make the drinks, steaming milk without first wiping the nasty looking nozzle and freely pouring tons of foam into their lattes .... basically just acting completely clueless. Perhaps this was their "B" team, but honestly if you can't make a simple latte I don't want to drop $3.50 on a drink here.

My second experience was a different chain, this one further down the road. This time, they brewed the shots and let them sit quite a while before actually steaming milk and completing the drink. It was ridiculously slow and took about 5 minutes for my drink despite the fact that there were only two drinks to be made before mine.

Now this morning, I decided to just suck it up and go to Starbucks. Yes, it's the McDonalds of coffee and I normally try to avoid them just on principal- but I thought surely they can make a latte without any drama. Actually I didn't even order a latte, just a cafe au lait (brewed coffee with steamed milk) which is practically impossible to screw up. Well the cashier was ridiculously rude - I thought he and the barista were going to throw down right in front of the customers and it turned out that 2 of the 3 containers of coffee were empty and I noticed the timer was expired on the one that did have coffee ( I used to work at the 'Buck so I know they put the brewed coffee on one hour timers then are supposed to toss what's left). So then the cashier looks at me and says in a kindof a bitchy tone, "so what kindof milk do you want?" By this point, I'm just distressed - I mean it's Starbucks!! It's a cafe au lait!! If I can't even get a freaking coffee with milk in my neighborhood without drama?? What does this mean?? In the midst of this I noticed that the barista was waaaay slow and though it wasn't particularly crowded, several irritated looking people were waiting for their drinks. I remember being in Denver and routinely have lines all the way to the door in the mornings, but still moving the drinks pretty quickly. We'd call down the line for orders and try to avoid the big clump of folks waiting at the pickup.

So I guess I'll have no option but to head into town for a decent coffee experience. Just sucks because all a girl wants is a somewhat local place to get a brew. Is that too much to ask???

Not Reporting From Seattle,
jenn