Blues For Breakfast

If you run a cafe and a customer asks the question "Is your orange juice freshly squeezed?" there is only one acceptable answer: "Yes, of course!"

If you need to answer "No" then you shouldn't be offering orange juice on the menu. The chalky bitter-and-yet-too-sweet orange coloured stuff that comes supplied in plastic bottles is about as close to orange juice as Kool Aid is to, well, any naturally occurring substance.

Other unacceptable answers to the above question:

♦"Yes, it's that brand that gets squeezed daily. We get it delivered every couple of days...*"

♦"No, but it's organic"

♦"I'm not sure†"

♦"No, it's Tang"

♦"No, but it's a really nice brand‡"

Lately, a cafe in my area has taken to providing a certain brand of organic orange juice in an ugly plastic bottle. If you are foolish enough to order it, the bottle is delivered to the table with a straw, no glass. This is all about showing off your preference for drinking expensive organic juice and nothing about enjoyment. It tastes like shit.

Hear me, restaurants of the world: the only acceptable option for providing orange juice to a customer is to get a few big fresh oranges (organic if you desire, certainly), squeeze the juice out of them and deliver it immediately to the table. Don't put ice in it.

The Cow has spoken.

*No kidding - a waiter said that to me once.
†You may as well say "No". Any restaurant waiter worth their wage could hardly not notice orange squeezing apparatus. It's not like it's a Stealth process or anything.
‡ No it isn't. Orange juice in bottles does not taste at all like real orange juice. Ever.