Keys To The Shop : Equipping Coffee Shop Leaders

We are back with anew round of show floor interviews from Coffee Fest! This time we were in NYC at the Keys to the Shop booth and got four wonderful presenters and experts to chat about training, entrepreneurship, and trademarking law! First up to talk about effective barista training strategies we have our friend Antoine Franklin!  Antoine Franklin (better known as "Twizz") born and raised in Cle...

Maintaining the functionality of your equipment is one of the main tasks involved in running a shop. You yourself may wan to be trained in machine tech, you may want to hire a teach or tech company to service your cafe's equipment, or you might want to raise up an internal technician. Today on the show we are goping to talk about training technicians and how to coffee techs and owners alike should...

There are an incredible number of tasks associated with running a coffee roastery. The busy work of keeping things going often gets in the way of working on the main areas that will actually move the needle and build a successful operation.  Today's guest comes to us with a lot of experience working in roasteries and consulting operators in the areas that he has identified as "The Core 7" essentia...

When you onboard baristas, the work is just beginning. Part of the privilege of leadership is to provide ongoing coaching and training to all staff. This creates the kind of quality and excellence we want customers to experience and the kind of ongoing education you give to staff will determine if they are well equipped to serve.  Today on Shift Break we will be talking about the two kinds of ongo...

The world of cafe management is full of great ideas that, if applied well, would indeed change things for the better. The idea around leader ship role being primarily about "setting people up for success" is one of those principles. The trouble is it often stops with just the idea and is not as often applied in a tangible way. Today we are going to explore what it really means to set your staff up...

Simplicity, focus, community, and legacy. These are some words that I feel apply to the steady and excellent service of Hyperion Espresso these last 30 years of operation. When you can measure your business in decades and look back with pride and a full heart, you now you have crafted something lasting and valuable. Today we are going to explore the story of Hyperion Espresso in Fredricksburg, VA...

It is a common weakness of hiring managers and desperate owners alike. We hire people that are not the right fit and spend most of our time trying to get them to change once they are working in the cafe. This leaves us burned out, it leaves the employee frustrated, and the business suffers in the process.  Today on Shift Break we will be talking about how e can avoid hiring the wrong people for th...

Once you hire the right people for your cafe you move on to the next decision, how to work with them to give them to set them and the business up for success. Too often the way we place and lead people is based on their job description and not so much based on their individual characteristics. How much better would your shop run if your team was given the opportunity to work in areas where they we...

Why does it feel so awkward and difficult to take action the way we know we need to as leaders in the coffee shop? If you are human, you feel a kind of resistance when it comes to making decisions, having those conversations, and generally taking decisive steps into leadership. What are we worried about? Well, there surely are some things we can fall prey to and need to guard against when using th...

The quality of your product matters. Some might get the idea that if only we are kind and hospitable then all will be forgiven or overlooked when it comes to quality fumbles. Actually, quality and the delivery of excellence in the product is part of how you show kindness and hospitality. Therefore how we approach it must be with a mindset that starts with the customer and ends with a structure of...

"I cannot open a coffee shop because my market is too saturated!" Does this sound like something you have heard or even said yourself?  Today there are indeed a LOT of coffee shops. Way more than there ever have been. But does that mean the market is really saturated? Today on Shift Break we will be talking about a different way to view market saturation that will challenge you and open you up to...

The question we sometimes ask interviewees is, "What is more important, quality, or hospitality?" Spoiler, it's a trick question and the answer we like to hear usually is "Both".  Well, today on the show we will dive into why the answer should actually be hospitality and how our approach to this question and the order in which we pursue things actually can limit our potential or set us up for mass...

 Roasting coffee sets the stage for how much potential enjoyment a customer has in drinking it. In order to truly bring out the best in a particular coffee, you need to consider details about the coffee that impact its behavior and development. One of the big ones of course is the cultivar you are roasting and being able to start determine a profile from a place of understanding based on what that...

In order to assure our staff that we are listening and want to provide them solutions for issues they bring up we will often promise things in the moment, but then life gets in the way. In the moment it does not feel like a big deal, but slowly trust is eroded, and we see less engagement and loss opportunity for growth. Today on Shift Break we will be talking about how a commitment and discipline...

It is easy to get caught up into the vortex of convenience in automation in the industry today. Whether it's the giant chain drive-through's popping up across America- or super automatic promises that aren't kept, or ready to drink products that promise profitability, but rob us of energy, we could be spending in more sustainable things - the current wave of convenience is also an opportunity for...

Creating a coffee shop that is not only for the community but built with the community is a pretty magical thing. It requires a deft balance between decisiveness, confidence, and openness to collaboration with others to make it truly sing.  Today we are talking with someone who has taken this challenge on and in the process set the tone for what a coffee shop experience can look like in a region t...

Whether it is a trade show, local business event, online or in-person summit, or a local throw down, coffee events are a way to connect and offer a lot of opportunities to grow and gain value for your career and business. That opportunity is there, but only if you know how to really take advantage of it.  Today on Shift Break we will be talking about how you can really get the most from a coffee e...

Coffee has always been about connection. The coffee shop brings people together inspiring conversations and playing a role in developing relationships that promote growth in a community.  Within the industry we have events and we also have various forms of media that also bring us together around ideas and inspire conversations around topic both directly and indirectly related to coffee. Among the...

At a certain point a manager or owner will need to have a difficult conversation with a staff member that ultimately is about accountability. This conversation is often done with a lot of pent up emotion and the stard being applied may or may not have been very well communicated or trained. On top of this we rarely see a structure put in place AND followed that helps guide the process. Today on Sh...

When you start a coffee shop you find yourself doing a lot of the jobs yourself. Scheduling, inventory, event management, training and onboarding, meetings, shift coverage, developing SOPs, hiring etc.  Initially these tasks and others like them are things you want to be involved with, but as time goes on, instead of delegating, we keep the same tasks year after year, and in so doing hold back our...

These days a lot of coffee shop owners are thinking about how they can add value for the customer. Of course this is a question that should be asked and right now with costs and competition the desire to add value is at an all time high as we seek to attract and retain customers.  But are we going about it the right way?  Today on Shift Break we will be talking about why you might not need to add...

 Besides hiring the right person for the role in your coffee shop, onboarding and training is the most important thing to get right so those you bring on and the customers who trust you brand, are set up for success. It is therefore little wonder why, when training and on-barding are skimped on, the hospitality, quality, and then sales go down as customers lose trust. Today we are going to be disc...

When we talk about the virtues of hospitality, one of the ones that comes up a lot is kindness. The extension of this grace to others in spite of our mood is a discipline that requires us to find motivation beyond receiving thanks.  Today on Shift Break we will be talking about why, if we are serious about kindness becoming what we are known for amongst other hospitality virtues, we need to suppor...

Creating and maintaining an elevated standard of hospitality is no easy task. It not only requires strategies and systems, but it requires that those providing the hospitality also experience it themselves. That people-first focus on employee satisfaction and sustainability matched with a high standard of training and a structure of operations to support  and nurture the culture is exactly what to...

As we continue to navigate costs and the increasing competitive landscape of running a coffee shop, focusing on what is essential in your business has never been more crucial. Few guests have given us as salient and focused a treatment on how to prioritize than when we interviewed author and speaker Greg McKeown on his best selling book Essentialism.  Greg is the CEO of McKeown Inc. His writing ha...