Successful Innovative Companies: Volume 9

The Successful Innovative Company of the week is: The Bean Counter.

What they do right: They have good coffee. After having a cup at The Bean Counter Dunkin Donuts will take pretty terrible. They have consistently been ranked the best coffee in Worcester year after year for the last decade. They have two locations, one in Worcester and one in Shrewsbury. How are they innovative? Simple they focus on the quality of the product.

Starbucks has good quality coffee too, but when you go in you feel like you should be wearing $300 shoes and driving a new Lexus. At the Bean Counter you can go in with holes in your pants and no one will care. It is a place that takes all types. Yuppie college students with laptops at 10 PM grinding out tomorrow's assignment. The 8:30 AM coffee crew age 50+ that defines liberal Massachusetts. The old retired lady sipping the small coffee just looking out the window. The British guy who shows up randomly for a week and hangs out with everyone then disappears for two months. The summer gang of acoustic or punk 20 somethings that smokes and drinks coffee from sunset til close. The pale vegans searching out some unadulterated piece of candy. The impatient business woman waiting to buy a cake. The best part is the girls behind the counter that know your usual drink.

Example: wake up at 7 in January or February and go over to The Bean Counter to do homework. Sitting beside the windows and the heater drinking a mocha. Scribbling rocket science as the snow flitters down from a gray sky. The rush of cars through the slush. The contrast between me warm and dry and productive on the inside and the outside world a cold wet mess three feet away. For some reason I'm three times as productive here as I was last night in the library. How I get so fortunate?

What they could improve: A student discount would be great! They also kind of a strange setup with the register and condiment counter. It's fine as long as they only serve one person at a time but sometimes they are serving three at a time and I have a little trouble knowing where to stand. Also a few of their electrical outlets don't work. My computer's battery lasts all of 15 minutes so an outlet is vital.