In our world of coffee shops we feel if we can get through the day without too many disasters or fires that we are doing well. The people we put into various roles adopt a similar mindset of avoidance of bad is equal to accomplishing good. but when you reflect back on your day and even career, when you have …
Coffee shops come in all shapes, styles, sizes, and focus on many different aspects of social experience and craft. If we look back we can see that certain themes emerge. Whether it is the 90’s coffee shop with bold colors, self serve airpots, lots of sugar, and no wifi, the early 2000’s sparse coffee temples with no sugar, or the …
The only way to really know how your business is doing, is to know how your staff are doing. Do you know, to the person, how each staff member is doing with service, hospitality, and skill in crafting coffee? This seems like it should be a no brainer but an incredible number of owners simply assume rather than verify and …
The great Danny Meyer said, “Policies are nothing more than guidelines to be broken for the benefit of our guests”. I come back to this idea often when trying to balance the tension between the need for structure and boundaries, and the freedom to be flexible in them and sometimes in spite of them. Today on Shift Break we will …
Sharing is caring!…but when you overshare with your managers it can easily be the opposite. You have a lot on your mind and often not a lot of people to share it with. The closest person is most often the manager or GM and they “get” to hear all about your plans, hopes, crazy ideas etc. Feels good for you, …
Yeah sure your staff take the customer’s order, give them the change, and direct them to the pick up area, but you want more! Trouble is, even though you have talked about it and told them, you don’t see a change. What gives?! Today on Shift break we will be talking about the often desired, always vaguely communicated, and angst …
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 …
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 …
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 …
