Subverting scripts can be critical to successful service innovation. However, deviating from
firmly embedded scripts can be risky, because doing so can confuse and frustrate customers.
Through an ethnographic study of a specialist coffee shop, we investigate customers’
responses to the introduction of a script that countervailed dominant category norms.
Drawing upon the constitutive elements of design thinking, we find that three practices—
destabilization, control, and adaptation—led to the successful subversion and replacement of
the dominant scripts. While this initially disoriented customers, the three identified practices enabled adoption by supporting customers’ transition to the new script. This study is novel in examining the practices and processes necessary for effective script subversion, and reveals the importance of thorough understanding of both the dominant script and customers’ experience of it. Moreover, it provides evidence of design thinking’s role in prompting and enacting service innovation.