Maybe you haven't noticed, but most urban coffee shops have doors that are relatively easy to open when exiting with full hands. Most of the time they have some kind of push-bar thing you activate with a shove of your hip. (Actually, some of us could break down a door with a hip if we weren't careful, but I digress.)
The point is, given that a to-go cup is practically required equipment if one wants to walk the streets of Portland or Seattle, why aren't all doors set up for ease of access and egress (as city planners like to say) while carrying steaming hot coffee? On a recent weekday I stood and watched for about 15 minutes on Portland's busy, trendy Northwest 23rd Avenue, and nearly everyone passing by had a cup of something from one of the half-dozen nearby coffee shops. Some also had cell phones cradled on their shoulders. I didn't worry about those people; they were just begging for a splash of scalding chai on their freshly dry-cleaned pants. The other ones I felt sorry for.
OK, maybe it's a cost issue. But if the rest of the retail and work world can't afford a push-bar, the least they can do is put a grande-sized shelf next to each doorway, so a person can set down her coffee long enough to turn the damn doorknob.
