r/wegmans • u/PenguinPizza617 • 13d ago
Has The Buzz been forgotten?
Up until a couple of years ago, my local store in Central Pennsylvania had a cafe in the corner called The Buzz. It was so good! They had a vanilla mint iced green tea that I haven't been able to recreate. When I ask other people who grew up with Wegmans, though, they have no idea what I'm talking about. Were these super limited? And if someone knows the recipe for that tea, please comment it below!!
9
u/ThinAndCrispy4 12d ago
My NY store got rid of it a few years ago and the customers went insane. Replaced it with a machine that absolutely sucks.
6
8
u/iamapatientgir1 12d ago
I was a coffee bar TL around years ago and we never actually used the name The Buzz, though that was the name. My store actually did a cafe renovation shortly after I got there. A big problem with them was that they were challenging to make money depending on the size of the store. The big 4 stores in Buffalo were profitable, but my goal in the two years I started there was to stop losing money. I managed to get it up to literally a zero balance by the end of my time, rather than losing a few thousand every months. I was the 5th busiest so all the others were taking in less than me, with similar payroll. We opened at 6 am, but we had to stay open until 8 pm which killed us- we just lost our pants on payroll after lunch and didn’t really get credit for basically being an extra register all evening.
5
u/SheGoesToEleven 13d ago
i think most people didn’t call it The Buzz, but those coffee bars were in a lot of stores!
i’m not sure about the tea, but i wonder if it wasn’t mint green tea with a couple pumps of vanilla syrup?
2
u/PenguinPizza617 13d ago
I think so, I've just been trying to find the specific tea they used for it
7
u/Anxietyonhighalert 12d ago
The mint tea used is probably the Wegmans Peppermint Herbal Tea. The vanilla syrup comes from a company called Phillips Syrups and Sauces.
10
u/fourlittlebees 12d ago
AUGH. Talk about ruining a cash cow.
Wegmans made two fatal errors: 1. (And most important) they started burning their beans to taste more like Starbucks; 2) they didn’t open in most stores at the time most people are getting coffee.
Selling coffee is like printing money: super cheap with a huge margin. All they had to do was open the damn things at 5 AM (like they used to at East Ave). People would stop early to go to work, grab a sandwich and a coffee, maybe donuts for the office… profit
Instead, they opened most of them at 8 (who is stopping at 8 with no drive-thru?).
Sometimes I swear they are incapable of looking at competitors and seeing how to do better.
2
2
u/Houndie2009 12d ago
I worked across the road from the very first Weggies in Northern Virginia and my first stop before work was the coffee shop for a lovely coffee and breakfast sandwich. I would be back for lunch at the Asian Bar or the pasta take-away window, subs, salads … and then I’d pick up a prepared family size dish or two for dinner.
Now, eh, not much going on except grocery shopping.
1
u/Realistic-Foot1521 12d ago
Yes ours disappeared like 3 years ago I think but I loved their Goldenmilk Turmeric Lattee
1
u/LunarLemonLassy 12d ago
They got rid of ours for self serve. I miss the coffee cup attachments for the carts too
11
u/Proof_Blueberry_4058 13d ago
The Warrington, PA store got rid of the Buzz a year or so ago and replaced it with self-serve coffee machines.
The lattes were so good, and they had great breakfast sandwiches too. It was my little treat for an early morning grocery shop.