The coffee shop is a can be a stressful place. There are no shortage of challenges big and small that confront us daily whether you are a barista of cafe owner. The trouble we run into is when our confirmation bias kicks in with every challenges and…
Some interviews we have on the show touch on so many deep, important, and impactful subjects that it is hard to stop the conversation. This was one of those. I wanted to talk about our guests’ career and then see where it led us and indeed we ended up discussing an assortment of issues that are sure to inspire and …
I am so happy to share with you this Founder Friday episode that takes a hard look at what is possible when you want to offer excellence at scale in a cafe setting. I am joined by the founder of the iconic and standard setting company, WatchHouse, Roland Horne. Roland founded WatchHouse in 2014 after extensive experience running small-to-medium-size businesses, including …
It is that time of year where cafes are all but expected to have the ubiquitous PSL in their menus. But there is so much more. Beyond this staple drink specialty cafes around the world have developed both wonderful signature creations and others that…
Should you open a coffee shop? How hard could it be anyway? Thousands of people around the globe have a dream to open a cafe. Once open however that dream can quickly become a nightmare. I am thrilled to have been able to collaborate with fellow podcasters over at the Adventures in Coffee podcast to put together an episode that …
How long should you let your coffee age after roast? Is freshest always best? How can we ensure our customers get the coffee at its peak? These are some of the questions that we explore around the topic of ideal resting times for roasted coffee, the myths around freshness, and the best practices for managing your coffee’s flavor life …
The work of running a cafe seems to never be quite complete. While we know that chasing “ perfection” is not the goal, we would do well to embrace the idea of dial in and refinement in our work. Today on Shift Break we will be talking about what a…
The coffee shop is made up various tasks and roles that all work together to create something magical. Wen those roles are not clear or followed through on then the we lose the magic and gain frustration. No role in the cafe is as important than that of the owner (arguably managers but that’s another topic), yet we rarely see …
Finally. It is time to get meta and have a Shift Break conversation about…shift breaks. We all go to work with a finite amount of energy to use on that days tasks and responsibilities. Trouble is that we also tend to work well beyond the point…
Every day on bars across the globe baristas are using milk to create amazing drinks. For almost as long as coffee has been served in coffee shops, milk has been a staple ingredient. Yet, in spite of its ubiquity in coffee culture, we tend to focus (understandably) more on understanding and crafting coffee than we do the milk that today …