5 min read
The Friday poll that filled a patio
One question a week, and what Low Water Coffee learned from 40,000 votes.
Low Water Coffee had a weekday problem: full on Saturdays, half empty from Monday to Friday. A discount would have filled it and taught people to wait for one. We tried a poll instead.
One question a week
Every Friday, one story: what should Monday's special be? Two options, both real, both made by the bar. The winner went on the board by the door on Monday morning, with the vote count underneath.
The poll gave people a reason to come in on a Monday that was theirs. They had voted for it. Some came in to check whether their side had won.
What 40,000 votes taught us
Over ten weeks the poll collected about 40,000 votes. The lesson was not the number. It was that a question with a visible result in the real world beats a post that only lives on a phone.
