We all hate when a shift is slow. It can feel demoralizing, boring, and frustrate even the best barista. What if these times on the bar are not all bad though? What if instead of seeing these times as a waste, we saw them as an opportunity.
Today on Shift Break we will be talking about the slow bar shifts that we dread and how to use them to grow our knowledge, skill, and maturity as coffee professionals.
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Operations management is a distinct from cafe management. At a certain point in your coffee business’ growth it become necessary to have someone whose job it is to manage managers and oversee the operations of the retail shops. This is a critical role that is as much about leadership as it is about decisiveness and and systems. Today we will be learning all about what goes into being a successful operations manager with Ryan Fisher of Erewhon Market, L.A.
Long-time coffee professional with experience and knowledge throughout the entire coffee supply chain. Creative and passionate with an extensive network built through a decade of competing, serving, and judging competitions globally including the Cup of Excellence, US Barista Competition, and Cherry Roast.
He has been at the helm of several shops as a manager as well as the Operations Manager for the famed goodboybob Coffee Roasters. Currently he is the Coffee Program Director for Erewhon markets in L.A.
In our conversation today we go through Ryan’s evolution as a leader in the cafe and then as an operations manager and all that he has learned along the way. I guarantee you will walk away from this conversation with some awesome insights for your own management journey!
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It's time to go back to an amazing episode of Founder Friday that teaches us about the power of taking risks and listening to what your heart is saying about your business. Back on episode 43 we interviewed Kathy Turiano of the multiple Good Food Award winning and roastery in Rochester, NY, Joe Bean Roasters. Joe Bean was founded in 2005 and has gone through several transformations but has always served the community through coffee and stayed true to their values in the process.
In this episode you will hear all about their origins and their first transformation and I hop you will be encouraged by Kathy's example, wisdom, and insights so you too can find the courage to make a move in the right, but maybe scary, direction for your own coffee shop.
Please do also listen to episode 207 where Kathy comes back to talk about hope is difficult times around the pandemic and what their latest and current iteration is.
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How long does it take to see a change take root in you coffee shop? Well, turns out it all depends on how long you have been operating and how large the company is. When we don't take the dimensions of our business, trying to make a shift or just keeping things on the right path can be very daunting.
On today's Shift Break we will be talking all about the turning radius of your cafe and how to prepare for and navigate it effectively for its size.
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As long as it has been around, coffee has always attracted creative and artistic people. Whether it is the coffee shop serving as community gathering spots or just the coffee itself inspiring expression, coffee fuels art, music, culture, and human connection. Today we are going to be talking with an artist whose music career has been focused on covering the truth of these subjects and whose own discovery of specialty coffee has helped shape his work, mindset, and mission. We are having a conversation with hip hop artist, Propaganda!
Propaganda grew up in a working class black family and lived in a predominant Latino neighborhood of LAThere was a sense of multiculturalism from the very beginning and Prop saw how one personʼs problem could very similar to that of another person.
For Prop, music is way to create conversations about substantial entities that impact us on a daily basis and to see how faith can help guide us along the way.
After he graduated college with degrees in illustration and intercultural studies, he taught high school for six years and had a hand in founding two charter schools in LA, one of which had a focus on the arts.
2007 he resigned from teaching to pursue music full-time and began touring as a solo artist. He joined the Humble Beast family and unveiled a series of four albums that put his music on the map.
Prop fell in love with coffee while on tour and has since been a coffee entrepreneur, enthusiast, and advocate even producing 2 Sprudgie award winning coffee focused songs, "If Coffee was a Man, and "Calibrate"
This is a wonderful and deep conversation about music, cultural authenticity, courage, and the cup of coffee that brings us together.
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How do I motivate and inspire my baristas? I get asked this question a lot by owners and managers desperate to see excitement and vibrancy in their cafe culture vs aone of slow, uninterested, and minimal participation and engagement.
Today on Shift Break we will explore 4 steps you need to walk through in order to inspire your staff and make the dream of that vibrant engaged culture a reality.
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Need advice? KTTS Consulting: chris@keystotheshop.com
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In order to have a profitable and consistent coffee shop you need to track and keep your data in order. Whether is labor, expenses, or COGs- spreadsheets are an essential tools to help you build a stable business.
On today's episode we sit down with frequent guest of the KTTS podcast, Maxwell Mooney of Narrative Coffee to talk about his top pieces of advice for using making and using spreadsheets.
Maxwell has been in coffee for well over a decade as a barista, manager, and competitor who then turned entrepreneur with the launch of Narrative Coffee. First he had a cart, then a wonderful brick and mortar, and now a second location. In these five years of operating, growing, and refining Narrative, Maxwell has been guided by his values for quality, hospitality, and community, all supported by systems.
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It feels like we need to constantly be growing and producing something new or else we risk looking like a failure, or that we lack ambition. The idea that we always need to be expanding and taking on new things is a flawed one that often submarines our chance at finding fulfill ent fro what we do.
Today on Shift Break we will be talking about how sometimes we need to sacrifice productivity for the sake of our health and why appropriate growth is better than constant growth.
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Brewing a great cup of coffee is what we all strive to do daily. Over the years, our own understanding of how to do this well has grown as the body of literature and content regarding brewing science has increased. Most recently one such resource has been published from someone who has applied their expertise and scientific rigor to the subject of brewing coffee, thus creating one of the most thorough treatments on the subject to date.
On today's show e are talking with the author of the new book, "The Physics of Filter Coffee", Jonathan Gagné !
Jonathan Gagné is a scientific advisor at the Rio Tinto Alcan Planetarium in Montreal, and adjunct professor at Université de Montréal. He completed his Ph.D. in astrophysics in 2015 and moved to the Carnegie Institution for Science in Washington, D.C. for a 3-year postdoc as a Sagan Fellow. He came back to Montreal to start a second postdoc at the Institute for Research on Exoplanets before he was hired by the Planetarium. Jonathan's expertise is focused on brown dwarfs, young stars, exoplanets, and stellar associations. He uses various telescopes throughout the world to carry his research, from the Observatoire du Mont-Mégantic in Québec, the Infrared Telescope Facilities in Hawaii and Gemini-South in Chile.
In his free time, Jonathan is also passionate about coffee brewing and has dived deeply into all many aspects of how physics affect coffee preparation for pour overs and more recently espresso. He maintains a blog of his findings and understanding of coffee physics at coffeeadastra.com, and he is the author of the book The Physics of Filter Coffee.
This is a wide-ranging conversation that addresses many of the key elements that impact our brewing and how we can apply practical solutions to create wonderful coffee both at home and at at scale in the shop
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Links:
Jonathan's Blog : www.coffeeadastra.com
Jonathan on IG: @jgagneastrocoffee
Buy the book! The Physics of Filter Coffee
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How do we get customers to buy coffees they will like? This is more or less the question I was asked by a client recently in regards to bean purchases and I feel it also speaks to other decisions the coffee shop customer will make in beverage, food, etc.
Today on Shift Break I will give you the answer I gave my client on how to help customers find beans they will like. From there we will talk about my philosophy and approach on up-selling as an important feature of hospitality vs an opportunistic grab for revenue.
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092 : Tony “Tonx” Konecny of Yes Plz : Consumer Accessibility, roasting, 3rd wave, subscription
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