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Keys To The Shop : Equipping Coffee Shop Leaders

A coffee podcast providing coffee shop owners and leaders, with insights, inspiration, and the tools you need to grow and advance your coffee business or coffee career. We learn from experts both in and outside the coffee industry as they deliver specific, practical, and actionable advice about ownership, optimization, profitability, barista work, employee culture, management, scaling, leadership, personal development, and anything else that will help you achieve success in the coffee shop.
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Keys To The Shop : Equipping Coffee Shop Leaders
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Now displaying: February, 2022
Feb 28, 2022

We are living in a time where the average consumer is both spoiled for choice and simultaneously vexed at the sheer number of options available for great coffee and brewing equipment. What used to be a need for more and better green and gear has shifted to a need for how to choose and then use it all to get the best results for you.  At the same time professionals, who represent coffee to the consumer, are increasingly hungry for reliable knowledge beyond their shops but lack the time that home enthusiasts tend to have more of. 

In the field of resources for making sense of coffee, today's guest, Lance Hedrick, stands out for his friendly, accessible, and well reasoned and researched approach to demystifying brewing for both pros and the average consumer. 

Lance Hedrick is a PHD student truanted coffee student who gave up his path in academia and pursuing a professorship in philosophy and linguistics to pursue coffee science and equipment. 

In Lance's time working in coffee, he has worked bar, in a kitchen, bagging coffee, making deliveries, roasting, quality control, managing, opening a shop, consulting, designing bars, servicing equipment, training, and is currently overseeing wholesale for the west coast and international accounts for Onyx Coffee Labs. 

As an accomplished competitor Lance has won somewhere over 30 latte art throw downs, is a 2 time CoffeeFest Latte Art World Champion, and has won 3rd and 2nd, respectively, in the US Brewers Cup Championship. Finally, he has been a coach to Andrea Allen in the Barista Championship since joining in 2018.

Lance has taken his passion for academia and coffee and combined them to create his popular Youtube channel where he breaks down the complex world of coffee and coffee equipment to make enjoying the best coffee accessible to all. 

In our conversation today we are going to hear a bit of Lances story and dive deep into the subject of how he approaches research, coffee education, and the importance of creating in roads for consumers to more fully enjoy specialty coffee. 

We cover:

  • Abandoning academia for coffee
  • Discovering specialty
  • Becoming latte art famous 
  • Developing skills for training and teaching
  • Starting to develop online material
  • Making coffee education accessible
  • The education gap between consumers and professionals
  • Equipping our customers well
  • Methodology for  what is right vs what is best
  • The importance of investing training and education
  • Barista education as the key equipping and embracing  consumers 

Links:

Lance Hedrick YouTube

Lance on Instagram

Related Episodes:

 

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Feb 25, 2022

On this Founder Friday we go to Jakarta, Indonesia to explore the story of Kopikalyan! This ground breaking roaster retailer sources,  roasts, and serves exclusively Indonesian Coffees. Innovation, Hospitality, and relationships are what drive this fantastic company and in today's episode we get to talk to Iman and Putri, two of the co-founders about how they took this business from idea, to reality 

Iman & Putri are two of six friends who co-founded Kopikalyan, both studied in Melbourne, Australia, one of the best cities in the world to enjoy coffee. The idea to start a coffee shop business happened over a casual conversation in 2016 and today Kopikalyan has 4 outlets in total, 3 in Jakarta and 1 in Tokyo, Japan.

Iman is an ex-banker who turned into a full-time entrepreneur due to his interest in F&B Business. Upon entering the coffee industry, he got interested in enhancing the synergy between upstream & downstream, particularly on how coffee shops could directly support a better life for farming families of Indonesia through fair prices.

Putri is an architect who previously worked on many hospitality projects. What interests her most about designing a coffee shop is the limitless possibility of always creating something different, in terms of customer’s experience as well as branding identity. She believes that visuals are an important aspect of showcasing great coffee. A coffee shop should be representing and spotlighting the coffee as well as the people behind that cup of coffee.

We cover:

  • Their inspiration to start
  • First year success and challenges,
  • Learning coffee and roasting
  • Growing the business , and staying true to values
  • Differentiation through sourcing and innovation
  • Building relationship with farmers
  • Scaling and metrics
  • Balancing intuition with dataLinks

Links:

www.kopikalyan.com

Instagram @kopikalyan 

 

Related Episodes:

256 : Founder Friday w/ Varat Vichit-Vadakan of Roots Coffee Roaster in Bangkok, Thailand

247 : Founder Friday! w/ Ritesh Doshi, CEO of Spring Valley Coffee, Nairobi, Kenya

289 : Founder Friday w/ Ochen Simon Eidodo of Chariots Coffees, Uganda!

171 : Founder Friday w/ Matt Chitharanjan and Namrata Asthana of Blue Tokai Coffee Roasters in India

134 : Founder Friday w/ Jeremy Zhang of M2M Roasters & Uni Uni Coffee in Nanjing ,China

294 : At Origin Roasting Revolution w/ Luis Fernando, founder of Amor Perfecto!

 

Visit our awesome sponsors!

Ground Control : Revolutionary Batch Brew Coffee!

www.groundcontrol.coffee

 

The Barista Series: Best Plant Based Beverages on Earth!

www.pacificfoodservice.com

 

 

Feb 23, 2022

Do you have an agreed upon way that you and your staff talk to each other? Poor communication is one of the most cited issues in exit interviews yet we rarely end up doing much to address it specifically.

Since we have been focusing on values in action lately today on Shift Break I thought it would be good to discuss how to collectively establish rules of engagement that will help guide how everyone in the business thinks about, approaches, and works with each other. 

291 : What to do if Your Baristas Wont Listen to You

244 : Top 10 Ways to Lose Employees

329 : How to Teach Company Values to Your Staff

Scaling Values

Bridging the Values-Actions Gap

 

Visit our Sponsors!!!

The best espresso machines in the world!

www.lamarzoccousa.com

 

Custom branded mobile apps for your shop!

www.espressly.co

 

 

Feb 22, 2022

We all make mistakes. It's part of the learning and growth process for everyone. As you go in your career you will find that there are certain types of mistakes that are worse than others in that they have a greater negative impact on you and those around you. 

I have been doing this coffee thing long enough to have amassed a nice list of those types of mistakes and today I want to share that list with you and elaborate on each one. I am pretty sure most if not all the listeners here will experience or are currently mired down in one or more of these mistakes and it's my hope that by shedding light on it in this episode you will be able to correct course sooner than I did! 

We cover:

  1. Arrogance
  2. Being Overbearing
  3. Taking it Personally
  4. Not listening to my boss
  5. Poor Heath
  6. Overwork
  7. Passive approach to development 

Related Episodes:

083: 6 Essential Books for your Professional Growth

243 : Encore Episode! “The Sleepwalking Barista (Owner)”

Patience & Passivity : Career Advice for the Long Game

258 : Prioritizing your Mental Health in the New Year w/ Dr. Lara Pence

266 : Building Physical Resilience W/ Dr. David Dahl DPT, CAFS

 

Visit our amazing Sponsors!

www.prima-coffee.com/keys

www.pacficfoodservice.com

www.coffeefest.com

 

 

Feb 21, 2022

Your coffee packaging holds more than just coffee. It holds an incredible amount of potential for communication of values, impact on the supply chain, and how coffee itself is percieved and succeeds in the global market. Packaging might not seem like the most compeling topic but the package itself may be on of the main tools that compels consumers and how we approach it matters greatly. 

Today on the Rate of Rise series from Roast Magaine we will be exploring pacaging and beyond with the author of the Sept/Oct 2021 article "The Perfect Package", Ever Meister. 

Ever Meister has worked in the coffee industry for 20+ years in a wide range of capacities, but primarily she is a journalist, educator, and communicator whose work focuses on issues of access, equity, and ethics. She is the author of New York City Coffee: A Caffeinated History (The History Press, 2017) and the host of the coffee-marketing podcast In Good Taste on the Sprudge media network.

A conversation with Ever will always lead to the deep and existensial issues at the root of our industry and this one is delivers that in spades along side some extremely practical tips and advice to put into action as your develop your own coffee packaging. 

We cover:

  • Evolution of packaging 
  • What are the main considerations 
  • Decisions fatigue
  • Customer experience
  • Judging Quality control claims
  • Investing in vendor relationship
  • How do we decide what to prioritize
  • Time budgeting 
  • Sustainability 
  • The give and take of waste
  • Messaging on the bag
  • Constraints and values

Links:

Ever Meister on Instagram: @justmeister

Meister@justmeister.com 

Subscribe to Roast Magazine! Use code "ROR" to get $5 off

 

Related Episodes:

RoR #1: A Conversation w/ Anne Cooper of Equilibrium Master Roasters

RoR #2: Exploring Quality Control w/ Spencer Turer of Coffee Enterprises

RoR #3: Making Contingency Planning a Reality w/ Andi Trindle Mersch of Philz Coffee

RoR #4: Practical Thermal Dynamics w/ Candice Madison of Royal Coffee / The Crown Oak

RoR #5: Time and Color in Roasting w/ Morten Munchow of Coffee Mind”

RoR #6: Buying Less and Doing More w/ Ever Meister

RoR #7 Illustrative Sample Roasting w/ Mike Ebert of Firedancer Coffee Consultants

ROR #8 How Post-Harvest Processing Impacts Flavor w/ Siva Subramanian and Byron Holcomb of Olam Food Ingredients

RoR #9 Inside the Roaster’s Tool Kit w/ Kat Melheim of Black and White Coffee and The Coffee People Zine

RoR #10 : What Your Broker Wishes You Knew w/ Scott Merle of La Minita Coffee

RoR #11 : Exploring Scent w/ Sandra Elisa Loofbourow

 

Feb 18, 2022

We often talk about charitable assumption and being proactive to address the needs of our guests. But how often are we considering the way we approach the relationship between owners and managers? There are a lot of expectations going both ways but not always a lot of understanding. 

Today on Shift Break we are going to talk about how if we can lean into communication and the spirit of mutuality then I am going to guess a lot of bad blood can be avoided. 

 

Related Episodes:

261 : The Basics of Managing Managers

141 : The 27 Challenges Managers Face w/ Bruce Tulgan

109 : Leadership Abandonment Syndrome : Lack of development in senior staff and what to do about it

229 : 7 Tips for New Managers

 

Visit our Sponsors!!!

The best espresso machines in the world!

www.lamarzoccousa.com

 

Custom branded mobile apps for your shop!

www.espressly.co

 

Feb 15, 2022

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 to the standards we strive to offer our baristas and guests as well as aid us in developing a culture where people feel confident and cared for. 

But how do we create, establish, and refine systems and processes so they serve our shops and people well? That is exactly what we are going to cover today in a pretty thorough examination of the steps needed to make and launch systems in your cafe. 

We cover: 

  • Beginning mindsets and assumptions
  • Leaders role
  • Observation and feedback
  • Rules for prioritization 
  • Writing for detail and for realism
  • Training, coaching, and refinement
  • Advice for both the new and existing shop

Related episodes you must listen too!

329 : How to Teach Company Values to Your Staff

123 : The 10 Essentials of a Barista Manual

080 : Changing things in the Cafe : A workflow for Refinement

057 : SOP’s FTW! Success through Standard Operating Procedures

007 : The 4 Keys to an Effective Checklist 

Feedback Culture : Making feedback a part of what you do not just something you sometimes do

The Impact of Absence

 

Visit our amazing Sponsors!

www.prima-coffee.com/keys

www.pacficfoodservice.com

www.coffeefest.com

Feb 10, 2022

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 say and do very similar things but why is our default to seek out ways to dismiss and make a caricature of them rather than trying to serve them with the benefit of the doubt as individual? 

Today on Shift Break we are going to talk about the problem with our natural tendency to train our brain to react to and think about customers in ways that ends up creating an unfair and less than stellar coffee experience.

 

Related Episodes:

Gossip: How this toxic element destroys community in the coffee shop and what to do instead

019 : 10 Reasons to Love the Customer w/ Chris Deferio

Encore! Curbing Their Enthusiasm

329 : How to Teach Company Values to Your Staff

 

Visit our Sponsors!!!

The best espresso machines in the world!

www.lamarzoccousa.com

 

Custom branded mobile apps for your shop!

www.espressly.co

 

 

 

Feb 8, 2022

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 if you are not there, then todays episode is for you. We will be talking with about the five tips and methods needed to teach values effectively to your baristas and create a culture the lives those values out every single day. 

We cover:

  • Creating meaningful values
  • Your daily example 
  • The tools you use
  • Cultural saturation
  • Speaking the language
  • Seeking connections to values
  • Being open to change focus

 

Recommended Episodes:

Learning -vs- LEARNING

Scaling Values

Bridging the Values-Actions Gap

The Conversational Reality of Your Business : Thought on how to approach creative projects in the new year

 

Visit our amazing Sponsors!

www.prima-coffee.com/keys

www.pacficfoodservice.com

www.coffeefest.com

 

 

Feb 3, 2022

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 competing reasons other than it is part of the coffee shop structure they see elsewhere.

Today on Shift Break we are going to chat about a couple reasons you should delay the installation of a manager and  why doing so will help you make a better management decision when the time is right. 

Recommend Episodes: 
 

Visit our Sponsors!!!

Custom branded mobile apps for your shop!

www.espressly.co

 

The best espresso machines in the world!

www.lamarzoccousa.com

 

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