Bradley Martinez has worked the front desk at the Grandview Resort & Conference Center for seventeen years, and he’s had enough of your coffee entitlement.
“People need to understand something fundamental,” Martinez told me during our interview in the hotel’s back office. “In-room coffee is a privilege, not a right. And frankly, most guests haven’t earned it.”
This is not a popular opinion in an industry built on the principle of saying yes, but Martinez believes the traveling public needs a wake-up call about their relationship with that increasingly abused coffee maker sitting on their room’s countertop.
Take the guest in Room 412 last month who called the front desk three separate times: first to locate the water reservoir, then to ask why coffee wasn’t coming out (no cup beneath the spout), and finally to complain the coffee “tasted like hot water” despite never inserting a pod. “I walked her through each step with my warmest phone voice,” Martinez recalled. “Big smile, even though she couldn’t see it. But inside? I was dying a little.”
Or consider the gentleman in 827 who attempted to cook instant ramen in the coffee maker, causing steam damage requiring a complete unit replacement. “I maintained perfect composure when he checked out,” Martinez noted. “Thanked him for staying with us, wished him safe travels. But that machine was a privilege he absolutely squandered.”
Martinez’s personal database – which management has “discouraged but not explicitly forbidden” – tracks incidents across all 287 rooms: guests brewing tea bags directly in the machine, leaving old pods in the chamber for days, and his personal favorite, calling to report the machine is broken when it simply isn’t plugged in.
“The creamer situation alone should concern every American,” Martinez said, recalling a guest found with seventeen individual creamers stockpiled in their mini-fridge. When confronting them, he offered only his most gracious smile and a cheerful reminder about the lobby coffee station. “I said, ‘We’d be happy to bring you fresh creamer daily!’ All warmth, pure hospitality. But what I was thinking? That’s between me and my therapist.”
He envisions a future where coffee access is tiered. Well-behaved guests receive full privileges. Problem guests get decaf only. Serious offenders lose the machine entirely and must visit the lobby’s industrial coffee urn – “motivation to do better next time.”
Martinez acknowledges his philosophy hasn’t gained traction. His quarterly proposals have been rejected four times running. Corporate forwarded his last memo to HR with wellness concerns.
But Martinez remains committed to his mission, even if guests never see his frustration. His radio crackled—a guest in 203 reporting their coffee maker “won’t work.” Martinez’s face transformed instantly into the consummate hospitality professional.
“Of course, I’ll be right there to help,” he said warmly into the radio. Then, to me: “Bet you twenty dollars it’s not plugged in.”
Minutes later, I heard his patient voice through the door: “Oh, these machines can be tricky! Let me show you…there we go! Just needed to be connected to power. Happens all the time, no worries! You enjoy that coffee now!”
The door closed. For just a moment, the smile dropped. Martinez looked at his watch, took a deep breath, and plastered that professional smile right back on.
“It’s a privilege,” he’s surely thinking as he returns to the front desk. “And nobody respects it.”