The defendant is a small business = real humans you can talk to. Maybe they could have explained that they did not have the money yet but could gladly bring coffee outside with more service in the meantime. It's easy to hide being legalism (especially for us engineers who like logical systems) and ignore the human factor and individual moral choices. Yes legally the plaintiff has the right to ruin a small business. But it's not necessary the right choice.

All the law does is provide a cause to sue. The plaintiff is the one who chose to pursue the case and demand either a crippling settlement or crippling renovation. This was completely the plaintiff's choice.

If the position is that pre-ADA inaccessible buildings should just all be razed, well, that's a point of view I guess. But the plaintiff doesn't get to deny their culpability for shutting this place down. They are 100% responsible. But for their lawsuit, the place would still be open.

And if their goal was to make the place comply with the law, why did they ask for a $60k settlement? Did they somehow incur $60k in damages because their friend had to go in and pick up the coffee? It seems like if what they wanted was compliance with the law, they would have asked for that or nothing. Unless of course maybe, just maybe an easy payday was the point all along.