Keys To The Shop : Equipping Coffee Shop Leaders

Working in a coffee bar means working in close quarters with your fellow baristas, managers, and owners. In this daily work we will eventually begin to feel the tension and start to wonder about how we can set boundaries for ourselves so we can continue to work and still take care of ourselves. The subject of boundaries may be ruminated on but we often do not have a framework to help us organize o...

As we all experience increased costs in the coffee shop the cost of our drinks and products will also need to increase. The major worry that many of us have is how customers will respond to this. On today's Shift Break we will talk about how customer experience has replaced coffee quality as the main deciding factor for whether a guest will accept higher cost and how we can facilitate this increas...

How you run things in the beginning of your cafe business cannot remain the same as you get busier and grow over the years. Many shops rely on what they have always done when confronting new challenges brought on by growth and the business of success. In the end, if you don't iterate and evolve your approach you will add needless stress, drop the ball, and miss out on the joy a growing business pr...

How our coffee gets to us after purchase can sometimes be a confusing thing. These days, with global supply chain issues abounding, the need to understand, track, and finesse all aspects of logistics is at an all time high. One of the main areas to be aware of is LTL freight as well and planning for any issues that may come up as your coffee moves from farm to forklift.  This episode of RoR from R...

This week on KTTS was basically "Logistics Week". When we talk about logistics and systems we naturally think about forming rules for how work is done that others can rely on for a predictable outcome. Trouble is, change is always needed to keep systems relevant, and being flexible or even training your team to be flexible is not an easy task.  On today's Shift Break we will discuss how to build i...

From the perspective of the cafe, the world of the roastery seems to be shrouded in mystery. Indeed, as we have said on the show before, roasting is practically its own business with its own ecosystem of relationships and systems. Todays guest is someone who began in the cafe and then dove in to that world and has since been creating intuitive solutions for both systems and the people they serve i...

"I just want to make coffee!" That thought has crossed all our minds at some point in our barista careers. In fact I remember clearly being reprimanded for my hyper-focus on the espresso machine at the expense of pretty much everything else. In reality, there are tasks and areas of the shop that require excellence just as much as the coffee we serve Today on Shift Break we will be talking about ho...

In the shop we serve people the product of our own training and understanding. We also sell them ideas of what coffee can be and our customers will frequently be frustrated at the gap of quality between the shop and their kitchen. This is where consumer coffee classes come in. Before the pandemic we were already seeing a rise in consumer education, but now it has truly gone from novel pursuit to a...

It's Founder Friday once again and I am thrilled to shine a light on someone who has built their business on a heart for people, relationships, and an offering of accessible quality coffees. Today we are talking with the founder of Drip Coffee NYC, Nigel Price! Nigel left a career in finance to pursue opening his own coffee shop. Once he was immersed in the industry he realized there was much more...

"We don't speak Starbucks" I cannot tell you how much damage phrases like this have done over the years. More than just creating hostility at the register with customers who don't speak the same "coffee language" as us, it also sets the stage for more hostility and misunderstanding with customers whose culture, language, or abilities are literally different from our own.  In today's shift break we...

The system works exactly the way it was designed to work...and it needs to be broken. This is the goal of a new model of coffee trade introduced by Andy and Nanelle Newbom through their company Torque Coffee.  Andy and Nanelle Newbom are life long coffee professionals who have been foundational in helping establish the standards for transparency and excellence we know today. With their iconic roas...

Welcome to part two of a live series of interviews conducted on the show floor of Coffee Fest Chicago in June of 2022! In these interviews I sit down with stellar presenters and lecturers to dig deep into a range of relevant and important topics that will help make you and your coffee business better.  Today we will be talking with Marissa Childers, co-founder (along with Ethan Darla) of Tanbrown...

Welcome to part on of a live series of interviews conducted on the show floor of Coffee Fest Chicago in June of 2022! In these interviews I sit down with stellar presenters and lecturers to dig deep into a range of relevant and important topics that will help make you and your coffee business better.  Today we will be talking with Luke Waite of The Lev Co and Pomelo Coffee Consulting all about how...

In coffee, we like to see ourselves making progress and we check our state against certain metrics and goals that we believe, once reached, will transform our business and as bring satisfaction. Today on Shift Break we will be discussing vanity metrics and why some of the feedback and status we seek through them will more likely lead to stress and fear, than joy and fulfillment.  Related episodes:...

Communicating, educating, and training boils down to how well you can connect with people to walk with them through information and transformation. If you want to be effective in these areas you need a whole lot of genuine passion and a desire to not just teach, but also to learn. Not many people in the industry embody this as much as today's guest, Michael Tan.  Michael is a 13 year industry vete...

It happens in cafe all over the world. Baristas are hired on a trial basis to see if they are a good fit for the business. On the surface, this practice seems logical and, no doubt, may yield some positive results. But...I believe the practice of trial basis hiring brings with it more negative results than positive.  On this Shift Break I will go over some of my thoughts on why trial basis hiring...

Many shops make sense on paper but in practice there is something missing. There are lot's of unseen barriers to progress and success in your shop that get in the way of the best plans no matter how you rearrange the staff, equipment, hours, ingredients, etc.  Today you and I will be chatting about five barriers to progress that are present in a ton of cafes around the world and how once addressin...

I have heard many times from owners that they need to be the best barista in the shop. The idea is that if they are not, then the staff will not respect them and it would compromise their leadership. As you might guess, this is a bit misguided. In this shift break we get into the details of how to think about your skill level in the work you oversee vs the work that your role as a leader requires...

What are some of the qualities that potential employers most value in a barista and why are they important? Today you and I will chat about the answers and how they make a significant difference in how you are perceived and how you find fulfillment in a job. These are not just qualities that let you stand out in a sea of applicants but they are traits that maximize your opportunities in your coffe...

We all hate when a shift is slow. It can feel demoralizing, boring, and frustrate even the best barista. What if these times on the bar are not all bad though? What if instead of seeing these times as a waste, we saw them as an opportunity.  Today on Shift Break we will be talking about the slow bar shifts that we dread and how to use them to grow our knowledge, skill, and maturity as coffee profe...

Operations management is a distinct from cafe management. At a certain point in your coffee business' growth it become necessary to have someone whose job it is to manage managers and oversee the operations of the retail shops. This is a critical role that is as much about leadership as it is about decisiveness and and systems. Today we will be learning all about what goes into being a successful...

It's time to go back to an amazing episode of Founder Friday that teaches us about the power of taking risks and listening to what your heart is saying about your business. Back on episode 43 we interviewed Kathy Turiano of the multiple Good Food Award winning and roastery in Rochester, NY, Joe Bean Roasters. Joe Bean was founded in 2005 and has gone through several transformations but has always...

How long does it take to see a change take root in you coffee shop? Well, turns out it all depends on how long you have been operating and how large the company is. When we don't take the dimensions of our business, trying to make a shift  or just keeping things on the right path can be very daunting.  On today's Shift Break we will be talking all about the turning radius of your cafe and how to p...

As long as it has been around, coffee has always attracted creative and artistic people. Whether it is the coffee shop serving as community gathering spots or just the coffee itself inspiring expression, coffee fuels art, music, culture, and human connection. Today we are going to be talking with an artist whose music career has been focused on covering the truth of these subjects and whose own di...

How do I motivate and inspire my baristas? I get asked this question a lot by owners and managers desperate to see excitement and vibrancy in their cafe culture vs aone of slow, uninterested, and minimal participation and engagement.  Today on Shift Break we will explore 4 steps you need to walk through in order to inspire your staff and make the dream of that vibrant engaged culture a reality.  R...