Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Jason W. Spencer on October 14, 2009 at 4:53pm

Our coffee shop experiences a lot of the same issues that you're running into. We will have some bursts of traffic during the week, but on the weekends it can be crazy at times. We have a couple of things that work for us and could possibly work for you. We have employees that are assigned to specific stations. We have 3 different stations behind the counter: an espresso station, a "hot drink" station that includes coffee, hot tea, hot chocolate (basically hot drinks that doesn't include espresso) and a cold station that includes fountain drinks, smoothies, iced tea, etc. During the week, we are a bit slower so we typically only have 1-2 people working but then we also serve pre-made lunch items in a self-serve refrigerator like sandwiches and salads. To help explain what goes into a sandwich, we have signs that list out ingredients and that sort of thing. My advice would be to have things to help educate your customers about your products like signs and then create some organization behind the counter for your baristas. I would agree that quality comes before speed, but target times are definitely important.

Permalink Reply by Mike McGinness on October 14, 2009 at 5:43pm

Interesting thread. The scenario of three barista with only one making, one preppping milk/flavorings, one taking orders isn't necesarrily necessary. Two experienced, and experienced working together, can flow together working virtually as efficiently as three dedicated to individual "portions" of the process. One is not strictly making drinks. While a rosetta etc. being poured by one the other has flowed into making the next beverage, the rosetta now delivered same barista takes order and preps, second barista pouring their art and first barista back building a beverage. Sometimes one barista builds and pulls a couple groups simultaneously for couple beverages and both then steaming for their respective beverages simultaneously one on each wand of same machine. It's an elegant fluid dance, and only comes with experience separately and together, and is a hellava lot of fun! That said there can be times that the dance becomes so frantic a THIRD that does nothing but takes orders and stays out of the way becomes beneficial. But the jist of my point is two working as one can be more efficient hammering out quality beverages than one strictly making and another strictly prepping.

I would not expect any new hire to be up the the challenge of the dance. Even if they have extensive quality focused experience it'll take a bit of time to learn to flow with respective barista dance partners. Sometimes only hours, sometimes many shifts. But an inexperienced new hire could easily take many months to a year or more for it to become second nature kicking into and sustaining a barista dance in overdrive.

THAT said while I agree ethics can't be trained, I also agree existing ethics can be nurtured. Yet be aware the work ethic must exist before it can be nurtured! There are those who believe Jiminy Cricket had it right and the world owes them a living. I've had to fire this type of person. Ever hear someone say "don't work too hard" in parting instead of "have a great day" or similar? Some people really mean work as little as you can get away with! In years past working boring menial labor type jobs more than once I was approached by co-workers asking me not to work so hard, it made them look bad. Hell, making a game of challenging myself was the only way of not dying of boredom!

Permalink Reply by Fraser Jamieson on October 14, 2009 at 6:54pm

Mike, I like the way you think and I'd love to watch your place in opperation. Sounds like fun.
Where I am, though, the space and work flow don't allow for that. Basically, cups arrive on top of the espresso machine and the barista preps and makes the drinks and places them off to their right, on a small counter where customers can pick them up. Having two people messing with the machine at the same time actually slows things down.
When my boss tries to do it I call out "TOO MANY PEOPLE BEHIND THE COUNTER" and they usually return to the office. Besides, my vision is limited on one side so if I turn around under full power to pump flavours, God help the person trying to push in behind me. Hmmm...I think there's a "Work place injuries" thread on here too.

Bottom line from what I'm saying: So much depends on the actual physical set up at the cafe.

Permalink Reply by Mike McGinness on October 14, 2009 at 8:11pm

Our work area is kind of like a "efficiency kitchern", long and narrow with 4' separating back of front counter and front of back bar counter. The syrups are directly behind the 3group. Indeed had a collision day before yesterday resulting in half the pitcher just steamed for 12oz double shot latte go flying, fortunately not hitting anyone. The problem was my newest hire entered the dance floor at the wrong time. She wasn't supposed to be in that zone at all yet when busy, she's not ready to Tango yet:-)

Agree two people that aren't in sync shouldn't both be near the same machine! But when two be a flowin' and jammin' just like a well rehearsed dance team it's a gas.

Fraser Jamieson said:

Mike, I like the way you think and I'd love to watch your place in opperation. Sounds like fun.
Where I am, though, the space and work flow don't allow for that. Basically, cups arrive on top of the espresso machine and the barista preps and makes the drinks and places them off to their right, on a small counter where customers can pick them up. Having two people messing with the machine at the same time actually slows things down.
When my boss tries to do it I call out "TOO MANY PEOPLE BEHIND THE COUNTER" and they usually return to the office. Besides, my vision is limited on one side so if I turn around under full power to pump flavours, God help the person trying to push in behind me. Hmmm...I think there's a "Work place injuries" thread on here too.

Bottom line from what I'm saying: So much depends on the actual physical set up at the cafe.

Permalink Reply by Bryan Wray on October 15, 2009 at 9:15am

We experience situations like this, but for us it's a day to day thing not a weekday to weekend thing.

Quick facts:
- It's a big shop (8,000ish sq ft if you count office, storage, prep areas)
- We have a fairly extensive tea menu (about 50 depending on season)
- We have (obviously) a full service espresso bar
- We have a full restaurant (pizzas, crepes, soups, paninis etc)
- We have a baking staff (quiche, cookies, muffins, cheesecakes, scones)
- We have a liquor license. We focus on local micro-brews with about 40 bottles in rotation and 9 taps in rotation as well. We have two full bars (3 counting the espresso bar).
- Our shop is centered around being a music venue, from the fact that we normally have 4-6 different artists playing full sets every night to the fact that we actually have a recording studio.

Alright, now I list those facts not as an advertisement, but just so you get a sense of how things are different for us so you can weigh out how to relate things to your situation.

First and foremost, I am in strong agreement with Mike, probably over-the-top strong. If you can't dance with me, get the -f- out from behind the bar, I'd rather do it alone. At our shop being able to dance is EXTREMELY important. It is essential that you know where you are, where you should be, where you should not be, where you are going and all of the same things about the people you are working with. One second you are turning over your right shoulder to grab a beer from the taps behind you, the next you are turning to your left and building a shot, the next you are running 4 plates to a table, the next you are running a dish tub back, the next you are pouring 4 Long Islands. You HAVE to know how to dance. If you don't I will hurt you... literally...

But the last "quick fact" raises a unique situation with our shop that kind of relates to yours: We are solely dependent on the crowd the artists bring in. What 'type' of crowd are they? Are they the coffee crowd, food crowd or beer crowd or all three? What size crowd are they going to pull? For example tonight we have a hip hop show. A record label is releasing one of their albums and is bringing in the artists on the label for the show. I haven't the slightest clue what that is going to mean for business as we have never done this sort of thing before, but I do know the place is going to be PACKED- like door clickers so we don't go over 375 capacity kind of packed. So, we cover our bases. 6 bartenders/baristas, 2 in the kitchen, 4 door/security guys, the sound crew and the owners doing whatever is needed at the time.

However, if you were to take last night... We had 2 bartenders/baristas, 1 person in the kitchen and the bartenders checking IDs- no door guy. It was an acoustic-folk show with a relaxed small crowd and we knew it was going to be.

Regardless of the situation presented to you, one thing rings truer than any other: Better to be overstaffed than under, you can always send someone home early.

It's one thing to get your employees moving, it's another to have stressed out, over-worked employees that can't keep up because there is just simply too much volume. Speed drills will help you out quite a bit, but at some point you do simply just have to staff up and it *sounds* (I'm not there so I don't know for sure) like you need a third on the weekend. You think you are busy on the weekends now? Wait until you have the ability to move a higher capacity with another person. I'm willing to bet your numbers shoot up even more.

Stations work sometimes, sometimes they don't. I have worked shops that were set up in such strict stations that when we were training people there was actually tape on the floor telling them where they could go and where they couldn't. With the shop I work at now, everybody does everything more or less. There are times when someone falls into a particular stations rhythm (order 16 beers back to back and I've turned into 'the tap station guy') and when that happens the staff needs to sense that and recenter their focus of what they need to be doing. The staff should constantly be asking, "If he/she is *there,* then where is the void? What should I be doing if he/she is doing that?"

Getting the staff to re-shift their focus as different situations (busy vs. slow) present themselves is going to be key to turning out higher business volumes.

-bry

Permalink Reply by Fraser Jamieson on October 15, 2009 at 11:54am

Thanks for that, Bryan; I enjoyed hearing about your place. It sounds wonderful.

This all should help answer the first question: Basically, look at the design of the place and figurre out a good work flow from that.

Where I am, we can produce at a good rate; but, with less than...hmm...three of those things you Americans call Feet, (which are made up of 12 toes, I guess) between my machine and the flavour pumps behind me, I simply don't want anyone dancing with me.

When I work with one other person behind the bar, and they know what they're doing, we can really motor. A third person moves things along even better on busy days, but they get used for measuring beans for customers; mixing syrups; cleaning tables and doing the garbage. A second person touching the espresso machine is likely to get a Reg Barber to the head if they get in my way. ;)

In a perfect world, the senior barista would work with management and the interior designer before the place even opened. So often that doesn't happen.

Permalink Reply by Lorenzo Perkins on October 15, 2009 at 11:09pm

One thing that I was trained about for work flow efficiency was "look for the bottleneck". Train your peeps to see what is getting backed up and when, be it 5 people in line, 5 smoothies to make, or 5 small lattes to throw out. Then focus your attention there until the "bottleneck" is opened up, then look for the next one. I know it sounds simple, but it's not. It takes time and understanding of how to handle customers who are waiting, drinks piling up, etc. Not to mention, an efficient staff. I like the idea of "efficiency drills" to encourage baristas to look for ways to speed themselves up, as well as one on one talks with the slower of your staff.

An important thing for you to watch is what is bottlenecking consistantly and WHY. Is it unmotivated staff, is it just a handful of people, or is your enitre staff just unaccustomed to the demand of the weekend? Can they move fast even when NOT busy? Two experienced baristas should be able to pump out $900 worth of drinks/pastries from 6am-11am. It is taxing when that situation happens, but possible.

Would it be possible for you to schedule two baristas on shift and yourself as an "unscheduled floater", and see if maybe three people on shift is justified?

You say that things are already pretty efficiently organized, but I can almost guarantee you, there are going to be a few things that can be made easier. They may be small, and easily overlooked, but they are there. Number of steaming pitchers, proximity to the rinse sink, access to milk jugs and cups, etc. A few small efficiency changes can add up to one big time saver.

I feel like I'm blabbing at you, but I hope some of this helps you out. Good luck.

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