Good intentions are nice and all, but how do you make sure that you can actually deliver on your ideals for quality, service, and beyond? The answer is systems. Unfortunately many shops are organizationally flying by the seat of their pants and delivering an inconsistent and frustrating experience. A well developed set of processes, lists, and procedures will give consistency …
When the customer first walks in the what do you think about them? Well chances are your immediate thoughts will be based on your assumptions formed in conversation with fellow baristas and the inside jokes we have at their expense. Yes, customers can…
It’s pretty easy to write our a set of company values. But how do you teach them in such a way that your staff own them and live by them? Now THAT is not easy. If you want to teach your staff the company values so that you are confident that they know, understand, and act according to them, even …
One of the questions I get asked a lot by consulting clients is when they should instal or think about hiring a manager. I see lots of coffee shops get into the mindset that they “should” have a manager but I don’t often see people give…
Navigating our way through the coffee industry can be a daunting task. Especially if you want to make a difference. As you go you are confronted with many challenges that threaten your stability and test both your resolve and faith in the reasons you began the journey in the first place. Through it all though, there is a kind of …
Today we get to talk with a pillar and foundational member of the specialty coffee community, Phuong Tran of Lava Java For 20 years now Phuong Tran has been the owner/operator of the famed coffee shop, Lava Java in Ridgefield Washington. There she discovered a passion for coffee that led her to not only craft the shop into a beacon …
As we set out in our coffee journeys as either entrepreneurs or professionals within a company, we tend to seek out and cultivate groups of people around us who offer affirmation almost exclusively. Not matter what we are doing, the mindset we have…
The smell of coffee is one of the great joys in this life. As professionals we take this important sensory aspect of coffee and build tools and protocols around it so we can fully and accurately assess a coffee’s quality and ultimately serve something consistently wonderful to our customers. In order to do this we need to bring balance, calibration, …
Everyone’s favorite coffee culture commentator and meme lord, Alan Jarrar is in the house! If you are like me and follow the account “50%Arabica” on Instagram, you know full well that there is more to the funny content than what you see on the surface. There is a world of professional coffee experience and philosophy that fuels not just …
We have to get the shop closed! Fast! Question is, at what cost? For most of us we engage in pre-close with an aggression that lies our stated commitment to hospitality. Customers are frequently put off by how we go about re-closing and we a…
