Roasting excellent coffee should not be relegated to only one finish temp or level of roast. For a significant portion of our history we have favored the lighter and lower temps in specialty coffee. But recently roasters have begun to full embrace more full developed roast profiles in a pursuit of brining that specialty excellence to a wider range of …
We all want to make a difference with our work. The trouble is that the busyness of a coffee shop tends to pull our attention in a million different directions and we rarely get an opportunity to see if indeed we are making that difference. This leads to a lot of stress, burn out, and a demoralization that can easily …
Jared Linzmeier is the co-founder of Ruby Coffee Roasters, based in Nelsonville, Wisconsin. After getting his start in specialty coffee with Intelligentsia in Los Angeles and later working in Portland and Seattle, he returned home in 2013 to start Ruby with his wife, Deanna. Named after his grandmother, Ruby has grown from a small garage roastery into …
I love getting to re-air classics. This one on barista manuals is a great one because it provide a structure for essentials that you can build on. Here is the truth though, manuals do not magically create a difference in your shop. They are only a tools to help you build and are meant to support people in the work …
The difference between dirty, dysfunctional, or neglected, and something that is maintained but has character, is the level of intentionality given to it. In many shops, we find broken and dismal conditions that really should have been maintained and fixed, but are often explained away as simply the age of the café itself as though it adds character. Most of …
This is a question that seems to be answered by many with desperate incentives and what amounts to just brute force to get their staff to do the things they want them to do in the way they want them to do it. In many ways, it’s a favorite past time of owners to just complain about it but how …
We always talk about adding value to the customer experience. In the coffee shop this is usually focused on things like the look, flavor, price, and service rendered. But I believe it goes a level deeper than that. In fact, in order to truly deliver value, we have to believe in the core thing our service and product symbolizes or …
So you have come to the conclusion that things need to change in your coffee shop. Maybe it is something related to systems, schedules, training, culture, or a host of other things you might want to take action on. But what is the first action you should take? Today on Shift Break we will be talking about the first right …
The world of coffee shops is fueled by the world of coffee farmers. For as long as coffee has been grown, the people who pursue the cultivation of the product we cultivate community around in the cafe have struggled and survive based on their ability to band together, invest in the land, one another, and innovate methods to secure their …
And the myths just keep on coming! Welcome to part 2 of the series on Myth Coffee Shop Owners Believe. The goal here is to create space and slow down long enough to critically and intentionally examine ideas before we adopt them into the fabric of our cafes. Of course in the frenzied world many of us occupy, having time …
