Keys to the Shop

We are notorious in coffee for promoting people into management based only on technical skills or that they might not be quite as unreliable as others on the team. We also rush good people who need more time to develop resilience into the position and set them up for failure. In order to make good decisions, there are many traits we need to look for in a a manager, but one i...

We all want to give a good experience to the customer with each interaction we have. A great service experience is really what drives people to be your loyal fans and is therefore the most important thing you can provide. Trouble is that when things really get moving, standards often slip. I think there are two reasons behind this.

Priorities

Today we have access to information about the world of coffee that is unprecedented. At times it can be overwhelming to consider all the areas of the coffee industry that need fixing while we also work daily to care for those we have immediately with us.

The trick is to tune into sources that convey not just the reality of the problem, but can also feature stories tha...

Sometimes we hope against hope that we can eventually win the customer over to that one flavor, those later hours of your cafe,  or the new menu item that the internet said was a sure-fire winner. Whether it is our own pride or some other reason, we can hang on to things a bit too long and damage our business in the process. 

Today on Shift Break we will be ...

As hard as starting a coffee shop can be, growing that shop is where the real work begins. The industry is riff with examples of cafes and roasteries that have suffered and even failed as a resulting how they approach growth. The industry also has many whose businesses have grown well but we can only admire their work as outsiders to the work that was done to get there. ...