Coffee woe

floatncoffee

there ARE two sides to it....... the barista side and the big business side.... (as described) the problem most coffee shops have is marrying the two.... i dont care how good a barista anyone is, if your running a coffee shop, your only as good as your average everyday joe customer TELLS you you are. im with billy.... quaity coffee will always win over "get em out fast no matter what" senario; big busines man (BBM) opens a coffee shop to make a ton of money. he hires desparate students, pays next to nothing.... he fires two staff members who were 1 minute too slow because they wanted the coffees to be right BBM is gathering a huge customer base, based on the fact the average everyday joe customer really dont know any better "its a capacino from a big coffee shop, so it must be good" ... so BBM sinks another 250,000 into it, gets more underpaid staff who simply dont want to be there, so you can imagine there customer service skills mean while the two staff members who were fired, start up there own coffee shop... built from an old site shed or something.... they are very passionate about what they're doing and set up just down the road from BBM.....selling better coffee , better customer service because its THERE business. and same prices due to lower overheads.... what do you think will happen????? BBM will take a MASSIVE drop in sales...... no amount of "big business accounting" can change the number of customers. People dont mind waiting alittle longer to get value for money!!! value on coffee AND value on customer service! you just have to show them they can get value for money with you people see something in a shop they can get then and there. but they go home and get it on Ebay and wait 3 days for it coz its value for money. thats my 2 cents hope it made sence lol 🙂 Ryan Billy stick to your guns mate. people remember quality

uuna

Which is exactly why I'm opening my own epresso bar...in a few years time when I've gathered some doosh, and finished studying. ;D

[deleted]

Guys Too simplistic and scenarios are at best naive... Yes it is very hard to marry both, but lets give the "average Joe" some credit. I would not consider any of my customers to be idiots. Would doubt that BBM would open a coffee shop to make a "ton" of money. Neither would you sink a further 250K and hire underpaid staff. For this sort of money, a long term plan and some serious consideration would have been given as to what sort of business they wanted to run. As for 2 passionate staff members. How would their overheads be any lower if they were "just down the road". More likely scenario would be, they naively borrowed money from family and friends to open business based on their "passion", found that within 6 months they had cash flow problems. Realised that working 70 hours each to earn less than 50K a year really wasn't worth it and like 60% of small businesses ended up closing within the first 2 years. Just because you live coffee and can make a decent cup of coffee doesn't mean you can open, let alone run your own business. The money needed to set up a espresso bar isn't peanuts. Minimum set up cost would be $150K to $200K before you even serve up your first cup of coffee. Think I'm joking...let's do the maths. Brand new 3 group machine $ 8,000.00 to $10,000 and up Grinder plus another for decaf $ 3,500.00 Underbench fridge for milk $ 8,000.00 Display fridge for food $10,000.00 Misc. equipment $ 5,000.00 (if selling food on the side) Cups/teapots/mugs etc. $ 1,000.00 Chairs/tables etc $ 5,000.00 Dishwasher/kitchen equipment $ 5,000.00 Set up of cafe (internally) $80,000.00 (electricals, plumbing, tiling, painting, benches, sinks etc) Bond for rent (3months) $15,000.00 Set up stock $ 5,000.00 Insurances etc $ 5,000.00 Money in bank to pay suppliers $10,000.00 and all the rest!!!! Seriously, 150K gets you a no frills sort of an espresso bar with no bells and whistles. Assumptions are being made that you will purchase your own machine and grinders as taking the "high road" you will not be using any of the major coffee suppliers (who would give you a machine and grinder) and using a smaller boutique roaster to output all these "quality" coffees. My 2 cents worth. L2L

[deleted]

wow, i thought the thread title looked familiar 🙂 It's 4 months and 4 employers on, I"ve just left the biggest boutique roaster in australia to concentrate on my film thing. I still, however, would like to remain in coffee doing the odd barista job, maybe helping out those who are just starting out, etc. I haven't changed in my views... that quality of coffee will always be the most important thing in a cafe. I've worked with a pretty hardcore manager now, and I can understand what it takes to make money in a cafe.. but he emphasised quality coffee above all else as well. I think when I originally posted this to the forum I was at a point where I hadn't explored the coffee scene properly, from a barista's point of view. In the end, it is definitely naive to think that just caring about how to tamp will affect the business - but that's where your business acumen comes in. If you have the right mind to make money but no idea about coffee, you'll make a moderate income serving swill. If you have no idea how to make money and a huge passion for coffee, you're setting yourself up for major disappointment. If you have a good mind for business AND flair with coffee, then you just might go places. To me, coffee is the one thing that is the easiest to affect in terms of quality - just adjusting the grind, in about half of Sydney's small cafes, will mean an immediate increase in quality. Add in a proper bit of milk texturing and then quality skyrockets. Espresso in itself has so many variables, you really don't get anything else like it in terms of what you can do with quality control.

admin

On a slightly different note here, but just thought I'd add an interesting footnote to this: a couple of years ago, I put a post on Coffeegeek [the coffee nerd site] saying that making coffee wasn't 'rocket science', and you should have seen the reaction from the poor dears!! My point was not that being a barista wasn't important, but that while it requires skill and a huge amount of dedication, it actually wasn't a huge intellectual thing. In fact that's no insult, as I think it's takes real commitment to pump out excellent shots time after time, but the reaction was pretty amazing - just thought I'd share that with you! -A 😉

blanyon

Interesting statement but there are few jobs in this world I would define as rocket science. Making a cup of coffee is easy, but doing it well and consistantly is the callenge. And unlike the case of rocket science which is a*b=c the barista is dealing with the ultimate variable ie the customer who wants and whims are variable and they have to figure out how to fullfil them. Just my 2 c worth. Give me coffee over rocket science anyday, its far more fun.

taz

It takes real committment to produce quality and reliability in any business or job no matter what it is. Intellectuals are usually very poor at what they are supposed to be good at, especially true in my industry. I would rather someone who just does rather than someone who just talks.

psaigh

I totally agree with the comment that coffee isn't rocket science. Whenever I'm training "rockstar baristas" with lots of attitude/arrogance I always make a point of reminding them that we're not putting people on the moon, we're not saving peoples lives. We're simply getting people their coffee, not ours, but theirs. Teaching coffee in a technical sense (ie/ this step, followed by that step, followed by this step=this coffee) can be taught to a monkey or a moron. Teaching coffee theory on the other hand (ie/ theory of flavour extraction from a bean, no matter what the paramaters) does take time, patience and practise backed by a solid willingness to learn (this is actually harder to find in a person than it sounds). It's not that hard to walk into someones work environment and get them pulling decent shots, time and time again. To get that person to be able to step into just about any environment and within a few minutes be pulling some exciting shots (or brewing some exciting coffee using alternative bewing methods) is a whole other world. Hence the difference between your weekend/McCoffee maker and a passionate, knowledgeable barista.

[deleted]

indeed, at one point I was really intent on becoming a trainer and I had my opening line all planned out.. "What matters isn't how you do things, but why you do things..."

admin

Just a quick qualification on my point above, this doesn't imply any lack of respect for top barista's - they have to exhibit great 'skill' to become top of their game [as Moto said - there actually aren't too many careers where you actually need to be a 'rocket scientist'!]. In fact a lot of my best friends are top baristas!! 😉-A

jimseventhree

I find this thread very interesting and can relate very much with your mind set Billy, but with a little twist. I was, up until recently, a cafe operator and the sole barista. My coffee passion is just a little under geekdom at the moment, and my main drive was to serve the best cup I can possibly produce for my customer. Apart from prompt and friendly service, nothing else mattered to me. I didn't matter if they wanted it hot, weak, soy, skim, weak decaf, five sugars, frothy, or all of the above. I tried my best to make them happy. I made no attempt to let them know what lengths I went to make their coffee either; the cup had to say it for itself. If and when I received any complaints, I was quick to offer a 'corrected' cup and try to subtly imply that their preference would best be requested on ordering. I think everyone can agree that there is no 'one' way to prepare coffee, since coffee can be prepared in a thousand combinations of black, white, long, short, hot, cold etc. The definition of 'espresso' (especially made for you) says it all. A good barista I think is defined by three things; skill, knowledge and attitude. Skill and knowledge speaks for itself, but attitude is expressed by a willingness to focus not on the cup but who it's served to. Make it for the customer, and not for yourself. Imagine trying to convince someone who has never tried a strong wash rind cheese to try it for the first time. Their reaction could be either very positive, indifferent or most likely sickened. 😃 It could simply take a long time for someone's palate to be persuaded. On another point, it goes without saying that if your attitude as a Barista doesn't match your employer's then it's time to look for another job. As you say, it really is about WHY you're doing things that is the real point. I would had given you a job straight away had I still had the cafe Billy. Shame. What troubles me a bit is that Barista's and Cafe operator's don't have a good attitude about how to serve coffee. We're making coffee especially for each individuals specifications. That is the real challenge. Not coercing others to our conventions.

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