Simply put- if you refuse to answer basic questions, don’t say hello when prompted, act like a toddler, cut in the drive thru line, and get very vocal about not wanting to tip me instead of saying “no tip” while still exploiting my labor—- your coffee is going to taste like shit

Ive been a barista for almost a year now and interviewed at a cafe for another barista role, and ended up getting an offer for a team lead role and then a manager role...

Barista pay was $15 + $5~ in tips

Team lead pay was ??? (they never disclosed)

Manager pay was $18 + $5~ in tips

I got 2 interviews. The first was with the owner of the coffee shop. This lady was a franchisee of a cafe brand and owns 2 locations. She had 1 established shop and was planning on opening a 2nd location.

She seemed to really like my work experience in tech and corporate, then ended up asking if i was open to leadership roles. I said yes and we could chat more. She gave me a hug at the end of the interview... 💀

Next interview was with her assistant manager. This girl barely asked any good interview questions and then sent me the offer for a 1. Team lead first, and when i tried to negotiate the pay and asked for details on the team lead then she 2. Offered the store manager role for $18 + tips

This entire team, the owner and the assistant manager, was so vague and unprofessional on not listing out the job responsibilities and expectations... I also felt sussed out once I got a hug from the owner after the initial interview; I was in shock when she just abruptly came in for a hug and I had no way out other than just giving in to the hug.

Looking back, it feels like the owner was trying to almost love-bomb me into their low-paying store manager role.

We are just coming out of tourist season, that seems to have been the biggest one my city has had. I'm absolutely certain I couldn't handle another month like this, but I keep telling myself that with slower days and less shifts I will be OK. Not so certain anymore.

Disclaimer: this happened during restocking after closing, the grinder was turned off and I have double checked all the other critical areas for safety. But I did stare at it from across the cafe, not being able to figure out why do we have pink coffee beans.

Hii it's going to be my first day working in a coffee shop ever next week and I'm a bit nervous. If you guys have any stories about your first day at work, share them in the comments!!

Hoping for some personal experience stories, words of warning, or helpful heads-ups.

In about a month, we’ll be adding protein to our menu, along with a few other healthy drink boosts.

For those of you who’ve incorporated health boosts on your menu…
1. What was the engagement like? Was there a big surge of people trying it right away, or was it a slow burn?
2. Do you find that enough people order it to justify keeping it on the menu?
3. Were there any drink process issues you had to work through? (e.g. baristas not adequately mixing powder etc.). What solved these problems/how would you get ahead of it?
4. Did you find it was important to have a plant-based option as well as whey? Just one or the other?
5. Anything else you wish you’d known before launching into this space?

Thank you so much, I appreciate any help!

I work at a cafe that a lot of people like to film in. And it's not uncommon for people to film me while I'm working and I later see it on tiktok. To be clear, I have never seen anyone making fun of me in the comments or anything like that. They have all been positive reviews of the cafe.

People filming doesn't bother me as long as it's just of themselves or the food/drinks. I think it's disrespectful to film someone, especially if you later post it, without their consent.

My main concern is safety. I take the bus to work. I deal with a lot of creeps on the bus. I have had strangers who showed up at my work looking for me after seeing my work shirt. I always lie when someone asks where I work (and I've gotten much better at ignoring people who try to talk to me on the bus) but that only does so much when I'm wearing a uniform. I also had a city-run Instagram post my image for a promotional thing and then had someone come in and make weird comments about me looking better in person. It just makes me feel unsafe that if the wrong person sees a video of me at work, they'll show up looking for me. There are spots around my cafe that someone could hide and wait for me to leave.

Am I dramatic for reporting the videos?

Youtube videos show that you can but want you guys opinion if you can do latte art using this? Has anyone tried it? I would love to buy a proper machine from Kmart but broke atp 😭

P.S. Thank you everyone for all the lovely advices. Will definitely try a French press :)

Since 2020. It's so taboo or unknown to much of the world, but for me, it's my everyday life and has been since the world shut down. What are you curious about?

Also, if there are any other bikini baristas in here, I'd love to ask you questions back!

I've had my E64S W for a while now and it keeps spraying grounds out the right side of the spout. I've removed and reseated the spout multiple times with no improvement. Starting to wonder if this is just a design issue with this model.

Has anyone else dealt with this? Any fixes that actually worked?

Apparently since my last post wasn’t "specific" enough I’m reposting my question. I have the Water for Coffee system installed under the bar at my café but we’re currently running a BWT Bestmax into the machine. I’d like to get this filter running again because it is much nicer, so I’ve tried to reach the company many times but I’ve had no answers so far. Does anyone know a way to contact them or knows someone who works there? Would be a great help!

We have a “customer question” flair?

I have been a barista for over a year now, but have been in the industry for 4 years starting as a dishwasher/barback. I recently got a job at a newly opened cafe a couple months ago as the head barista, which was going well and I had a few shifts a week, would sometimes come in on off days if we had a new employee just to show them around. A month and a half ago though, I was somehow promoted to manager, which I accepted as essentially I was running the bar/foh and set systems in place (owners have no experience whatsoever in the hospitality industry other than the last 5 months).

My main issue is he's paying minimum wage, while expecting perfection and absolute commitment from all employees, which I always have to argue and fight back. All of us are full-time university students. The 2 employees that are not, he schedules daily with 1-2 days off every 2 weeks, having them work the bar, kitchen, floor and dishwashing too. I love my employees and I care about them and have tried standing up for them multiple times to which I only see change for a total of one day to an immediate reversal back to old behaviour.

I have decided to quit, as I cannot do it anymore, I have worked in much busier places before that have not been as tiring as it is here, I'm just not sure if I should recommend my employees to other places that I know have better work-life balance or if I should just leave and say nothing.

The most conflicting part is I am not sure if this is just how it is in the industry and being a manager of a new place and I should just bear it for a bit and wait it out, or if these are issues that are specific to the cafe I work at and it won't really ever get better.

Tw: mental health, mention of sh and suicidal thoughts

Let me just preface by saying that English isn't my first language, so sorry in advance for any spelling or grammar mistakes.

Just wanted to rant/share.

As the title states, i quit my job. Worked at that restaurant for almost 9 months, and today is my last shift. It's a fairly busy place, most of the orders go through the waiters, only the TA costumers are the barista's responsibility, which was perfect for me since I'm autistic and struggle to handle too many people, but LOVE making coffee and other beverages. However, it's always loud, constant rushes, a boss that is very pushy and demanding, closings that, if done thoroughly, take 2-2.5 hours.My boss kept scheduling me for more shifts that i signed up for, etc... Also, during the summer we had a few specials, including one event with 500 customers, most of them TA. All of it started to weigh on me and caused me to fully burn out. I stopped functioning other than going to work, at home I just slept and cried. My panic attacks got worse, I relapsed into SH, suicidal thoughts became a daily accurance. I tried, really (regardless of what my boss claims) to put myself together, and to stay. But i couldn't. Last week, after a serious breakdown at work, i quit on the spot. Wanted to never come back, but apparently I legally owe my boss at least a week notice. And just like that, today is my last shift.

Ig I am relieved, now I'll finally have a break. But also I'm terrified of the whole thing, I know today my boss will scold me for leaving, i know I won't be able to pay rent if I don't find a job in the next week or two, and besides that I'm not great with my routine changing...

I will miss the bar, and my coworkers - the best ones I've ever had, will be sad about it for some time. But i had no other choice but to walk away, i couldn't handle it anymore. Maybe I'm making a mistake, maybe I can't do better, maybe I did not try hard enough. I don't know anymore, I'm so mentally exhausted and scared of the future.

Thank you for reading, appreciate that

Edit - the TW

Hi,
Just wanted to share that I recently found the Costa brand coffee beans and I love it. I don’t like Arabica beans by themselves so I’m always trying to find them blended with Robusta beans like in this brand.
So far I’ve just brewed them in my French press, but I’ll try brewing espresso and see if I like it.
If anybody can recommend other brands that have Robusta beans I’d appreciate it.
Thanks!

Hello, I’ve been a software engineer for the past 6 years, and I am looking to start a career in coffee. I’m not entirely sure where I want to end up long term as I have interests in roasting and/or opening a coffee shop of my own one day. I am sure that in order to get my foot in the door, I really want to be a barista for a few years before making a decision on which direction I will go with coffee.

As I am looking at my resume, I realize I don’t have anything that professionally applies to a barista position. Maybe I can translate teamwork/collaboration and customer focus to something that is relevant to serving customers as a barista, but that seems fake. The only experiences that may be relevant that I can pull from are a few years of lifeguarding during college and a few years of working in fast food in high school. Those are both respectively almost 10 years and 15 years ago.

My question is do I focus on those experiences on my resume? I am also a home barista that brings an espresso setup to family vacations to serve family, and I also have recently got into roasting my own beans at home. I plan on mentioning this at the bottom of my resume and in my cover letter.

Any input or advice on how to focus my application would be appreciated! I can’t image many coffee shop owners/hiring managers could understand the career change and pay cut to barista.

Hi all, anyone know what we can do to fix the preparation of the espresso grounds? It seems to be very clumpy (static?). The clump grate is intact... we've tried using a wdt tool to help break this up further, still too many nuggets amongst the rest of the loose grounds... the first image is how it comes out of the grinder, the second is how it looks once the wdt tool is used and basket is levelled before the third image which shows how it looks after tamping... and then the last two images are how the pucks look after extraction.

- we have a puqpress, but it seems to result in even more channelling around the edges

- the baskets are always wiped clean

- the group handles are always cleaned

- the shower screens were trash and have been replaced (they were weird cheap ones, and they spun in place even with the screw fully tightened)

- the puqpress is regularly wiped with a dry towel

I've tried using more of a coarse grind with more tamping pressure and conversely a finer grind with less pressure

We use roughly 18.5g (increase/adjust to taste) with about 38g out in 29 seconds using a medium roast pulped natural + washed Brazilian Guatemalan blend.

I've never had such bad clumping, and tbh have never used a blind shaker... I feel like there's static around the work area as you can occasionally feel a little static shock if you're touching the amplifier and something else metal... any help would be greatly appreciated

I don’t know how to be a good customer or what mannerisms/ etiquette to have towards the baristas at my shop. I’m too shy to ask.

I would like to make their work easier and not make them feel uncomfortable

any suggestions or tips ?

Had a moment this week I can't stop thinking about. Regular comes in every morning, decent tipper, always friendly. He asked what I did before this, and I told him I was in tech, got laid off, been doing this while I keep looking. The whole vibe shifted. Not rude exactly, but that slightly pitying thing where they start talking slower and explaining things you already know. Like the apron changed what I'm capable of understanding.

What gets me is I've been pulling shots and steaming milk since before some of these people had their first job. The work is real, and the regulars who actually get that are great. But there's a subset who decide they know your whole story the second they see you behind the counter, and once you give them a detail that doesn't fit what they've already decided, they can't recalibrate.

Curious if this lands for anyone else here, especially if you're doing this as a bridge gig while something else is in motion. Do you just keep it vague with regulars, or does it not bother you at all? I go back and forth on whether sharing anything personal is even worth it.

I have started tapering off my antidepressants and it made me think about how the baristas at my local coffee shop have no idea how much they have helped me!

Basically, I became a regular because I could not eat or prepare breakfast for myself, so my daily goal was simply to take a shower and leave the house to get a coffee. I chose the coffee shop closest to my home. Every day, I would be there with a book, drinking the same coffee and eating the same thing.

Then I started to feel better. The antidepressants started to do their work, as well as therapy, and I began trying new things. I started talking to the baristas. I started talking to the owners. I started talking to the other regulars.

Now, two years later, they are my friends. Sometimes I just go there to chat. And now I’m tapering off my antidepressants... They have no idea how much they have helped me.

(There was not a proper flair, sorry)

Comment ur ideas below!
I will start, I specialize in the thermodynamic extraction of liquids. My expertise lies in the application of high atmospheric pressure and meticulous temperature calibration to induce the perfect chemical reaction within the cup.

Hey guys,

So I have a background in event management running arts workshops / education. I took a break from things recently due to feeling a bit burnt out and wanting a chiller job, so I picked up a barista gig cause I love working in hospitality and coffee - for a small business art cafe that just opened. I got the job before they opened, and a lot of my shifts involved setting stuff up and helping out in very non-barista ways, but I was cool with that. They also saw my experience and hired me as a “associate” for their event and art programming, but offered me barista rate of pay (less than a dollar above minimum wage) .

Fast forward, I’m working after opening, and my shifts consist of graphic design for our posters and menus, creating event calendars and descriptions, coordinating guest artists, developing art programs from scratch, and even have been asked to create a marketing strategy for the art programs… in ADDITION to barista-ing (and bartending) each day. It’s not that I don’t enjoy that aspect of the work, I definitely do, but I felt weird about the rate of pay and title, as a couple of my colleagues work as the managers/leads of their area and I’m an associate, despite being literaly the only person running all the arts related stuff other than the owner ordering the supplies we need. I’d like to also add that the art programming is not an add-on thing, it’s a core part of their business model and even has its own sales targets. I learned recently that my colleagues (who work as kitchen assistants) are making up to $4-6 more than me hourly. When they found out what I was getting for the work I was doing, even they said I should be receiving way more.

The thing is, the business just opened a couple weeks ago, and I want to stay on good terms with the owners - but I, as well as my colleagues, feel that I’m kind of being taken advantage of. It’s also maybe worth noting that the owners are very new to running a business, and neither of them have any experience in art programming or hospitality and defer to us for the “expertise”. What tf should I do?

THANK YOU

I am taking over a small coffee shop in the UK, it's inside a yoga studio so we sell lots of smoothies/herbal teas/healthy shakes. So the coffee isn't the main product that is focused on/advertised.

I worked out the statistics of last year's coffee sales, the avg is eight coffees per day. I am looking for a coffee machine that can work up to 15 coffees a day and is straightforward to learn and use (we have volunteers working as it's also a charity-run company).

Currently, the coffee and coffee machine is Rijo and frankly it produces very average coffee. So I'm looking for an upgrade that can produce barrista-quality (or close-to) coffee. And it needs to be a double-bean contianer so facilitate decaff and regular.

Max budget £800.

Any suggestions?

Kinda like title says.

I'm looking at spaces, and there's a spot that has a lower-than-usual ceiling (8' to 9'), and I was wondering if there were any good spaces to reference.

Thank you!

I really want to work as a barista at a cafe in Melbourne, but every place seems to want someone with experience!!!!!!! How are you supposed to get your first barista job if no one hires people without experience? 🙀🙀🙀🙀🙀😿😿😿😿😿🙀😿🙀