Q : what are the orders - are they the same or do women ask for more complicated orders?

Q : who are the servers? are the servers college age boys?

Sung you ask way too many questions. j/k
The first question is a valid one. I have noticed that women's orders are more custom than the men's.

yeah, in the study, the author notes that women often order more complicated drinks. but he actually compared when women and men were ordering the same drinks. he also looked at the gender/age of the servers and found women were mostly served slower when the servers were men... BUT, i'm not sure if the amount of time he found (20 seconds) is THAT significant...

"This is an intriguing piece of research because coffee shops appear to be a competitive business, and one thing we economists think we know about discrimination is that competition should tend to erode it."

silly economist... why should the $9/hr kid behind the counter care how competitive the business is?

good point... and if the people being discriminated against don't realize they're being treated differently (by 20 seconds), there isn't going to be a backlash.

hmm... since this seems to be a topic of interest i'll give my two cents.

in the past i have worked as a bean squeezer and have been on the making end of these cafes and here's what i experienced. men tend to order simple stuff - such as. an americano with room. easy - shot of espresso + hot water = done! while women tended to order more complicated stuff - double split shot wet cap. with 2% milk.

now if i get an order like this.
01. americano
02. double split shot wet cap. with 2% milk
03. americano

then i'm pulling two single shots - adding a shot each to a cup + add hot water to both and order 01. and order 03. is done! then i'll work on the double split shot wet cap. with 2% milk... which of course means the lady will get her order later.

I've never noticed this type of discrimination getting coffee, but I'll probably start looking for it now. I've had a ton of customer service jobs in the past myself, including barista, waitress, retail, etc. and I guess one conclusion I have is that if you're slammed or understaffed or something else is going wrong, subconsciously you're more likely to not want to make a male customer angry than a female customer, so maybe that's why they're getting served first. This is simply because of the bullshit long-suffering, me-last nature of most women -- you know they'll be less likely to speak up for themselves and much more likely to just "be nice" and not yell at you. A displeased male customer is more likely to lash out at you, than a female customer, I think. Like I said, it's bullshit, but I think it's true. You can see more examples of this on a crowded bus (among other places in society) -- women scrunch up and take care not to take up an inch more room than is necessary, while men sprawl out and make sure they get all the space that's coming to them. Let me add, that I don't blame women for the whole feminine nicety thing, (though if you recognize it in yourself, you need to change it). We're conditioned our whole lives to be polite and not rock the boat -- you don't want to be called a BITCH, do you?