Ask what they would make if you let them
People who make things all day rarely get asked their opinion by the people they make them for.
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The BeingKind editorsPublished How this is written
Why it lands
Baristas, cooks, bartenders and cheesemongers develop real expertise and spend their shifts executing other people's orders. Being asked what they rate is not just flattering; it is the one moment in a transaction where they get to be a person with knowledge rather than a mechanism for producing what was requested. It also reliably gets you something better than you would have ordered.
How
Ask when there is no queue, and then actually take the recommendation — asking and then ordering your usual is worse than not asking. Tell them next time whether it was good, which turns a one-off into a conversation that continues.
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