Also, there kind of is an ‘express’ lane? It’s available to nice regular customers.
Genuinely. I learn the baristas’ names (they’ve all got name tags, it’s not hard), smile, if there’s no queue and they’re not super busy I’ll ask about how they’re doing, compliment the coffees (”Yeeeeah Eliza makes awesome lattes!”), and the only complaint I’ve ever made was: “Hey, er, there’s no caramel syrup in this.” “Oh! I’ll make you a new one.” “Can you just put the syrup in the top?” “That’s not how we make it. It’ll taste different.” “Babe it’s coffee I don’t care.”
If the person on the bar doesn’t have a line of drinks to make, mine starts getting made the second I walk in. If there’s a queue because there’s one person at the counter who hasn’t decided what they want, I get handed my coffee before I even ask for it. They’ve purposefully gone through the cups to get me a ‘winner’. They’ve given me a month’s worth of ‘free coffee’ vouchers, meant for their 100th customer of the year but the 8 people in before me weren’t polite. There was even one specific barista who charged me for small lattes, whilst making me large caramel lattes because she was proving her point that their chain were nicer than a competing chain.
Just be nice, and you’ll have less stuff to complain about. People generally want to help, don’t give them a reason not to.