VIRTUAL COFFEE/JUICE CARDS

What's a Coffee Card or Juice Card?

Each time you buy one of our espresso-based drinks (see list at right) at the Espresso and Juice Bar, you get one coffee credit. Each time you buy a carrot or wheat grass juice drink, you get one juice credit. We provide a coffee card or juice card, which you can get stamped once for each credit. When you have filled up the 10 spaces on the card, you can turn it in for a free drink of the same kind.

What's a VIRTUAL Card?

We've noticed that some people dislike having to keep track of yet another card in their purses and wallets. We even provided a handy index file so you could leave your card here, where you use it. But then you have to be a file clerk every time you come in. What a buzz kill.

There had to be a better way. Why couldn't the computer just keep track of your credits for you, we thought?

So now, if you're a co-op member, you can use your membership card as a coffee card and juice card. That way, you don't have to carry a separate card. We call it a "virtual" card because it exists only in cyberspace, as an electronic record of your eligible purchases and redemptions. Your membership card is necessary so the computer program will know whose "virtual card" to credit or debit.

(Sorry, nonmembers -- it's old-fashioned paper cards, ink-blots and index files for you.)

How to start a Virtual Card

Just write your member number on your old coffee card and turn it in to the barista. Starting the next morning, your coffee credits will appear on-screen, including any credits that were on your hardcopy card. The barista will redeem your Virtual Card each time you accumulate 10 credits. Feel free to ask how many credits you've accumulated. (Credits are updated each night, when the computer has time to sift through the day's activity.)

What about associate members?

There is one limitation to the Virtual Card, compared with its hardcopy cousin. Each member account can track only one Virtual Coffee Card, one Virtual Carrot Juice Card and one Virtual Wheat Grass Juice Card. So all eligible purchases and redemptions on that account are shared.

Now let's consider a nasty little scenario. You come in each morning for your regular drink, accumulating coffee credits all week long. Then your partner, who hardly EVER buys espresso, comes in on Saturday morning just in time to get the freebie.

Well, we put a team of analysts on this thorny problem for, literally, minutes. We couldn't crack it. If sharing credits just won't work in your household, it's old-fashioned paper cards, ink-blots and index files for you.