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Cleanup duties may seem like mundane chore, but they are still an issue of tremendous importance. Restaurants that fail to keep their kitchen and food prep areas squeaky clean could run into any number of problems which they would have done well to avoid. From minimizing labor and overhead costs to avoiding the headaches associated with a health-code violation, making sure your commercial kitchen is being properly run, clean and maintained is not a matter to be taken lightly.

Create Established Cleanup Procedures

Having a set way for cleaning everything eliminates any uncertainty regarding cleanup. Creating a manual detailing the steps that need to be taken when closing and cleaning the kitchen ensures more consistent and dependable results. Training all existing and future kitchen staff to follow the same procedures can allow them to work more efficiently which may save on labor and help to lower overhead costs.

Ovens and Deep Fryers

Cafe's have fries, sandwiches, baked goods, and lots of other delicious sides to great Joe. A deep fryer that has been in continuous operation for hours on end can be a far greater challenge to clean than a sink, bus tub or food prep station. Contracting with a commercial grease trap cleaning helps to ensure that the job is able to be done to your satisfaction. Outsourcing key aspects of cleanup and waste disposal can free your staff to concentrate on other responsibilities.

Opening and Closing Shift Duties

The kitchen needs to be kept as clean as possible in between shifts in order to ensure superior sanitation and efficiency. Tasking each shift with additional duties or scheduling deep-cleaning tasks on a rotating daily or weekly basis helps to ensure that your commercial kitchen is being properly maintained. Clearly outlined shift duties pertaining to a specific time and day of the week can help you to better direct the efforts and energies of your staff.

Sanitizing Food Prep and Storage Areas

Any area where food may come into contact with a potential contaminant needs to be sanitized as often as possible. An outbreak of food poisoning or other health issue that originated within your kitchen can be disastrous. Taking extra care to keep food handling, prep and storage stations as clean as you possibly can be well worth a little extra time or effort.

Trying to do much on their own is a common mistake that many restaurant owners tend to make. When it comes to kitchen cleaning, make sure that your staff has been properly trained and that your shift supervisors and managers understand their role. Never forget that keeping the kitchen squeaky clean is a team effort.

While a traditional coffee might still be served steaming hot, iced coffee is a trend that doesn’t seem to be slowing down. That means it’s long past time you included these iced coffee options on your restaurant’s menu.

Cold Brew Coffee

This delicious style of iced coffee begins cold and ends cold, resulting in a delicious taste for your customers. It’s becoming more and more popular and essential to include on your menu. 

To produce cold brew coffee, you must combine the coffee grinds with cold water. It is best to use coarsely ground coffee. This mixture is then stirred and left to seep and cool. Then this “concentrate” is strained and served with ice.

Cold brew usually comes out smooth and sweet, making it an excellent choice for customers who want an iced beverage without the normal acidity of a drip-coffee.

Iced Americano

Customers looking for a morning zap will appreciate this strong, sturdy drink that adds a vigorous option to any menu.

A traditional Americano is simply an espresso shot brewed and added to water. This gives the coffee the strength of espresso and the bigger size customers often desire. To make an iced Americano, simply for the espresso shot into a cup with ice, then add cold water and a bit of extra ice on top.

This drink will be a bit stronger than typical cold brew coffee, and also more bitter.

Pour-Over Iced Coffee

This simple option is perfect for smaller restaurants and cafes, giving you the ability to prepare a delicious iced coffee quickly.

Use a pour-over device to mix coffee and warm water and drip it into a cup filled with ice. This process is wonderfully quick and easy.

Because it is brewed with warm water, pour-over iced coffee comes out rich and sweet. This means it is not only easy for the restaurant to produce, but the customers will also love it.

Cappuccino on Ice

This creamy delight will wow customers. Combine normal drip coffee with milk, whisk in vanilla, and pour into a cup over ice.

A cappuccino on ice will be thick and sweet, providing your customers with a perfect treat.

These iced coffee options will be sure to bring your restaurant to the next level, so put that used stainless steel three door commercial freezer to use, and get brewing!

It would be a coffee shop owner’s dream to have a business that floods in customers on a daily basis. With a well-run coffee shop that’s organised and well equipped to deal with the demand, this is a possibility. One of the major factors behind a successful coffee shop is scheduling correctly to prevent long queues and unhappy customers. It’s important to balance out managing demand whilst not being too overcrowded with your staffing.

What should you consider when scheduling staff and rota staff for different shifts at different times? Here are some helpful tips to ensure the management of your coffee shop is just right for your personal schedule, the schedules of your staff and your customers.

Get a good understanding of your peak times

A good way to start with managing your schedule is getting to grips on when your peak times are. You need to not only consider routine morning rushes, but also other parts of the day as well as seasonal periods and other determining factors around your area. Are you busiest during the winter months? Are you close-by to an educational facility where you may witness slumps at the time of the year?

These are common assumptions of any coffee shop in the business. To fully understand what your own peak times are, analyse your business data and figures to get an idea of when you have the most customers coming through and when you need your staff the most. By doing this, it can help you to manage the schedule of your staff and your own personal schedule. There may be occasions when you need to arrange emergency appointments for your plastic surgery or dental amendments, for example. Knowing when you’re least busy will provide flexibility for when you can arrange such appointments.

What is a reasonable number of staff to have on a shift?

Once you gain a better understanding of what your peak times are or when you’re the quietest, this can help you to know how many staff you should have on shift. Consider the size of the shop itself, what services you provide, who your most experienced staff are. All these factors should reflect on the number of staff you have working. At the same time, check local labour laws to ensure you’re within the guidelines of staff wellbeing and they’re not being overworked illegally.

Also, consider their roles in the business. Sometimes, you may automatically schedule two people with the same role on the same shift. This can not only help with efficiency when dealing with orders for customers but also provides a safety net if someone calls in for an emergency or for being sick.

Ensure you have the right staff at the right time

There are many different roles that are required in a busy coffee shop. A skilled barista, a waiter or waitress, a chef and a manager. Knowing when to schedule the right people can be just as important as the number of people that you schedule. Evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of your staff to better determine whether they would be best suited to a different shift to others. 

It’s not only technical skills that should be considered too - what other soft skills are they good at? Their customer service, their relationships with other members of staff on the same shift, are they a big personality? These factors can contribute to the effectiveness of each member's productivity. Are there periods in the day where you’ll be able to partner experienced staff with new employees? There will come a time when the new employees will need to take up more responsibility. Learning from more experienced members will help to achieve that.

Scheduling can play a big part in your success

Scheduling can be a strenuous activity for coffee shop owners and it’s probably not the most fun part of the job. However, you can reap the benefits of correct scheduling with increased profits and customer satisfaction from your service. Be sure to take the time to analyse your business and plan around this. Consider what your staff’s preferable shifts are so morale can remain high and increase productivity.

Running a coffee shop is a great way to establish financial independence and become your own boss. You are basically living the American Dream. If you want to take your American Dream to the next level, you need to get the name of your business out there. Here are some marketing tips that can help take your coffee shop to the next level.

Tempt people with delicious-looking pictures

Most people respond to visual stimulation more than anything else. Give them a reason to come in by posting amazing pictures of your coffee and pastries. Create drinks and food with pictures in mind. Presentation is everything, so show everyone what you got. Post the pictures on all social media accounts and even on print ads.

Utilize reviews

There are a lot of coffee shops out there. One of the ways that you can stand out from the rest is with positive reviews. Encourage patrons to post reviews when they’ve had a good experience. You can use these reviews to help promote your business. Put the reviews on your website. You can also put the reviews in on your social media accounts and maybe your ads.

Successful SEO

You want your shop to come up when people search for coffee shops in your area. To improve search results, you need to focus on your local SEO. To do this, create a local business account with Google. Direct people to leave reviews here. You should also create content about things happening in your community. You may even get involved in the community yourself. You should also be sure to put appropriate keywords in your content, such as “coffee shop in BLANK”. White label SEO can give you the tools you need to accomplish this successfully. You want to stand out when people are looking for shops around them. If you offer specialty drinks then make sure that people know about them. Make sure you have ranking keywords for “Arabic coffee” or “best London Fog near me”.

Establish a loyalty program

Many people drink coffee every single day. That means that they could benefit from a coffee loyalty program. If you give people a discount for coming to your shop repeatedly, they will be more likely to remain loyal. You should make the loyalty program easy to use. Consider having someone develop an app so that people can access it at the push of a button.

If you expect customers, you need to market your coffee shop. These tips can help, but you have a number of other things to do to stay on top. If you work at it, the customers will come.