AS the saying goes good manners cost nothing, but they could save you a few dollars at a Gerroa café.
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The Seven Mile Beach Kiosk in Gerroa became nationally and internationally known on Thursday thanks to its sign offering discounted coffees to customers who show good manners.
A take-away coffee at the café goes for $5, but asking for a coffee please will see that price drop to $4.50, while adding a good morning will see your cappuccino or flat white come down to $4.
Seven Mile Beach Kiosk co-owner Kylie Pickett said the aim of the sign was to create a pleasant work place and to encourage people to take the time to think about how they use their manners.
“We’ve always had a sign out the front with something silly or fun on it to make people laugh and brighten their day, but then one of our employees saw a sign like this when she was on holidays and sent us a picture and we thought it was a great idea,” Ms Pickett said.
“It’s just a nice, positive thing, I think a lot of people who come through here are a bit time-poor so they don’t take the time to think about manners and I don’t think it’s something that’s taught as much as it used to be.
“Hopefully if people see the sign they’ll think about them a bit more and use them a bit more, when people come in here and say please and thank you it really does make our day and makes the whole shop a better place to be.”
While the aim of the sign was to increase the "please" and "thankyous" at the café, Ms Pickett said it’s also had some unintended consequences.
“It’s been out the front for two or three months now, when we first put it out it was around school holidays and it slowed us down a bit because of how polite people were being, but that’s what we wanted, so we can’t complain too much.
“The coverage we’ve got has been amazing and it was never something we thought would happen, we were on Sunrise, we had a newspaper from the UK ring us and a radio station in Ballarat put a picture on Facebook and got something like 17,000 likes, it’s just blown us all away.”