COLUMBIA — For as long as Drip, the popular Five Points coffee shop, has been a place to catch up on schoolwork, go on a first date or sit and read, the Saluda Avenue cafe's Wi-Fi has struggled to keep up.Â
But, the days of notoriously laggy internet that forced café-goers to depend on cell phone hot spots or wait in agony for sites to load are over. The coffee shop, which came under new ownership at the beginning of this year, has a new internet service provider, owner Akera Sellers confirmed.
"We're running on a faster, more reliable network and the community can enjoy that because that's part of what we do," Sellers said. "We don't just offer good coffee and customer service, we still have to focus on the atmosphere and make sure that people who are coming here to get work done can get it done."
The decision arose, in part, because Sellers noticed a desire from the community for the Wi-Fi to be improved. The straw that broke the camel's back was when the internet cut out on a busy Sunday not long after he took over ownership of the cafe.Â
Sellers purchased the longtime Five Points spot at 729 Saluda Ave. from its original owner Sean McCrossin. The purchase was first reported in December of last year and Sellers, who also owns Brickhouse Coffee in West Columbia, officially took over the place at the beginning of this year.Â
"People were worried that I was going to come in and change things. I told people, I wasn't coming in to change things, but I wanted to focus on the things that needed improvement," Sellers said, nodding to Drip's Wi-Fi issues and the decision to change the longtime customer reward system.Â
Where the cafe made use of paper, business-card-sized stamp cards to keep track of customer rewards — one drink equals a punch, 12 punches equals a free drink — Sellers has updated the system. It now relies on a phone number to keep track of punches, now points. Sellers said he updated the system so customers don't have to deal with the headache or disappointment of losing the physical punchcard and to streamline the checkout process.Â
The cozy coffee shop, with sturdy wood bench seating, eclectic local art adorning the walls and an impressive collection of vinyl records, has been in the entertainment and nightlife district for more than a decade.Â
The impressive collection of records is another thing that'll change at the coffee shop in the coming months.
By summertime, McCrossin, Drip's former owner, will remove the remaining records from the back room of the coffee shop. Sellers said the management team is still figuring out what the plan is for the space that now holds the vinyl records.Â
