All I Know

The World’s Second-Biggest No-Brainer, with Raleigh Bruegger’s Roundup

The second-biggest no-brainer in the world for a regular coffee drinker is the Bruegger’s Bottomless card, which costs $180 a year.  It’s pretty easy to figure that you will likely recover your investment by Independence Day with even modest utilization, but there are a few things you might not know if you haven’t looked into it:

  • It’s not a bottomless mug (unless you are crazy and you want it to be…), it’s a key fob or a wallet card that allows you to get drinks in their normal cup, thus sparing you from the whole mug hygiene thing.  Sorry, trees.
  • It’s not just coffee.  You can get soft drinks and teas as well.
  • It’s not just once a day; you are in fact entitled to a beverage per hour.    So a heavy utilization day for me is coffee on the way to work, coffee refill mid morning, and a soft drink at lunch.
  • You don’t really need the key fob or card after January or so; they already know you.  I have not given my key fob to my wife later in the year, but I expect my evil-twin in a parallel universe has.
  • Most likely you will save an additional bucket of money because you are consuming Bruegger’s coffee instead of Starbuck’s, which costs twice as much.  Starbuck’s may be better, but it’s not twice as good, and money talks.  The Bruegger’s Dark Roast works just fine for me.

I have never, not even once, experienced a Bruegger’s employee express any sort of grudge about supplying bottomless drinks, even when I am there for a repeat visit.  I don’t know if they are coached on this topic or not– more likely they realize that thing is a great win/win.  It has me in Bruegger’s an awful lot, and while I don’t get food on the majority of my visits, I certainly buy more food there than I would have without the free beverage.

Raleigh Bruegger’s Compared

Mention

  • 6325 Falls of Neuse.  Closed often.

Honorable Mention

  • Ridgewood – good, nice place to sit.  Don’t get there as much as I used to.
  • North Hills – adequate, not especially friendly. Very easy to get in and out of.
  • 222 Glenwood – nice line staff, ditzy managment.  Same ownership as Brier Creek.
  • 9704 Stickland – seems to attract a fitness crowd on Saturdays, which is cool.
  • 7550 Creedmoor – pleasant staff.  Frequently mobbed.

Runner Up

  • Pleasant Valley 6274 Glenwood – I am very fond of this place and go there often, but it has some issues.  There food service is typically slower than it should be, often because not enough labor has been distributed to the task.  There is a persistent burnt plastic smell there that has lingered for years, the parking lot lines have recently been re-painted, the spaces are wide enough for small motorcycles and skateboards.  However, the management is pleasant and the line staff is nice.  Grace will light up your day.

Best in Town

  • Mission Valley/Avent Ferry – an easy call:  Lisa sets the pace by greeting each customer by name and offering their typical drink.  All of the staff is pleasant, and Kevin is an engaged, super-competent manager.

 

PS: the World’s Biggest No-Brainer is the Raleigh CitiPass (now called GoPlaySave) coupon book, which costs $25 and will save you hundreds on things you would have bought anyway.

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