Comments on: South Silver Spring coffee house to close

By: LuvMyHood

LuvMyHood — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 21:06:33 +0000

Well, DUH! Just clicked on the link in the original Penguin story, and found this on the company website: “Mayorga Coffee is proud to announce the opening of a new location at 314 Carroll Street, NW in Washington, DC. The 1,200 square foot location is scheduled to open on January 25th. The location will offer Mayorga’s signature coffee beverages, fresh baked pastries, and whole bean coffee roasted by Mayorga at their Rockville, MD roasting facility.”

By: LuvMyHood

LuvMyHood — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 20:42:32 +0000

There have been rumors that Mayorga would reopen in Takoma Park. Here is what I saw this afternoon: walking past the site of the old Drifting Nomad (across from the Takoma Metro station), I saw workers inside. The furniture had been removed and the formerly bright-yellow walls had been painted white. There were several coffee urns bearing the Mayorga logo. So it looks like someone is moving in, and they will be serving Mayorga coffee. Hope the white paint is just primer, and that wall color and/or interesting art is on the way.

By: Noah

Noah — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 04:36:22 +0000

Too bad. My kids liked the place, although it closed too early for them.
We found a coffee store located at 8200 Fenton Street, Silver Spring the have a strong coffee stimulates the senses. It’ll wake you up. This place has the good stuff. As far as I can tell. This place makes a nice cup of joe.

By: Mary

Mary — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 05:20:33 +0000

I’m especially sad to lose Mayorga since a trivia game night event that I created and co-produced back in 2005 will lose its home (it occurred the the first Tuesday of every month). The event was inspired by the European pub-style quizzes that I loved so much and based upon the original “Wits & Wagers” game that my friends at North Star Games created. Mayorga was a great, hospitable place for the event and I met lots of great people during its run. I will definitely miss Mayorga Silver Spring.

By: Patrick

Patrick — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 22:38:25 +0000

When there’s no line and it still takes them 15 minutes to get you your cup of coffee, they’re not going to last long.

I liked the place theoretically, but the service was mind-numbingly slow and confused. And I’m a pretty patient guy.

By: B Williams, Silver Spring, MD

B Williams, Silver Spring, MD — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 20:43:27 +0000

Too bad. My kids liked the place, although it closed too early for them. I wish they’d move to our side of the tracks instead of closing.

By: brh

brh — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 17:09:44 +0000

Except that when Starbucks grew, I can only assume the quality went down – had their coffee always tasted the way it does now, I can’t imagine they would’ve gotten so big… Once you grow enough from just being good, you can start to grow from marketing and brand recognition, you buy other chains (Seattle’s Best), you use local-washing techniques to bag the Starbucks haters, etc. You don’t necessarily have to stay amazing, just… enough.

A lot of things about Mayorga stunk, but they know how to roast beans. At least the bagged goods should still be around. Maybe my view is a bit tainted, being lucky enough to have never had any truly miserable experiences with the service… (but again, nothing like the joy of eating at Kefa).

By: Sligo

Sligo — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 15:21:18 +0000

The comments above illustrate why slavish loyalty to independent businesses strictly because they are independent doesn’t make sense, nor does it help the businesses themselves. (Note that Mayorga is actually a chain now…)

If more people had stopped going there earlier and let them know why (bad food, slow service, etc.), perhaps this is something they could have remedied and stayed viable. No doubt the unclear parking situation contributed, but like many commenters above, I never really had that great an experience at Mayorga. It was just OK. Say what you want about Starbucks, but the people working there know what they are doing, and you can get your drink quickly.

There are some other independent Silver Spring businesses that I no longer patronize due to repeated bad service experiences. If these places want to be successful, it’s important for them to maintain a level of quality control equal or superior to their chain counterparts. Even Starbucks was an independent coffeehouse once, but obviously they did something right that made them popular with customers and allowed them to grow rapidly. It should be noted that most independent coffee houses only exist because Starbucks created the market for them.

Editor’s note: Very well said. — JD (Dec 14, 2009)

By: Grig

Grig — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 14:02:39 +0000

Yeah, I heard about this at work last week, that they were going belly up. Some of the employees were upset because they liked the coffee, but many weren’t surprised for reasons others had mentioned: no parking, bad location, bad service, and bland food. I had already posted elsewhere about my negative experience.

Businesses have to be adaptable to survive these days. They have to make loyal customers, and sadly, Mayorga was just not cutting it. You know things are getting bad when they complain the customers are at fault. Like they think customers owe them.

Editor’s note: Well said. — JD (Dec 14, 2009)

By: Evan

Evan — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 13:59:25 +0000

While this is a huge loss, we need to remember that there are plenty of other independent coffee shops that need our continued support: Tiramisu Cafe & Bakery on Eastern Avenue, Highland Coffee on Fenton Street and Kefa Cafe on Bonifant.