Finally?
I remember discovering Gold Cup Taft during the pandemic. We fell in love with the place. The coffee was good and the food was okay (the serving size was big!). Then one day, when the world was starting to open again, their physical menu was gone. Since we were kind of regular customers there, we just said we'll have the same order we usually have. When we took our bill, lo and behold, our bill was way too large than what we ordered. When I verified, the order was right, but the prices they almost doubled. The only explanation they had was that their menu could only be seen by scanning the QR code.
We felt blindsided. There was no inflation hike, no price increase on goods. No other cafés or restaurants had a steep rise in prices. Only Gold Cup. Felt like a stab in the back to people who supported local businesses.
Over the years, we still went there but only when there was no other choice i. e. total blackout. The internet was decent for work. The coffee lost its taste. The food was so-so. And our last visit there, the baristas seemed aloof.
We joked that hopefully soon Gold Cup and Cloud will close. Cloud went ahead, that took longer than expected. Gold Cup 3 though, kinda bittersweet. But oh well. There's more cafés worth going to in this city.
If you have any tea, time to spill it from your cup of gold!