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Permalink Reply by Mike McGinness on April 21, 2011 at 9:05am

For other than blended I'd say 1:30 min. max per bev.

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Permalink Reply by John P on April 21, 2011 at 5:54pm

I can't comment on drive thru... don't use it, don't have it-- but I would guess they are less patient than walk-in folk.

on average, I'd agree with Mike... but I remember reading a report that said people were happy to wait (on average) seven minutes for a drink. Based on my experience, I think that's probably an honest number. 

 

I think there are too many factors to give a cut and dry answer. 

I think it's necessary to move at an efficient pace, but not a hurried pace. There's a difference between serving a customer promptly and having them see you as just a drink making device. Customers who want FAST drinks are probably going to places where that's their thing. 

 

Also, it depends on the size of the line and if it's to stay or to go. People who are staying aren't expecting you to rush their drink out to them if there is a line of people getting things to go. Ideally in depends who is in line first, but usually you would try to get the to go people taken care of quickly --- within reason. If you are busy, it will be easy to see and there will be an expectation that the wait will be a little longer. 

 

In the end, it's really what you deliver... provided you're not just being slow and lazy.  The only time you should be concerned is when they don't wait.

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Permalink Reply by Mike McGinness on April 21, 2011 at 7:25pm

"People" may be willing to wait 7 minutes but I'd fire any barista of mine who couldn't deliver our normal top quality espresso beverages at a much faster pace. That's less than nine beverages per hour pace. Some over the top complicated six or eight dollar signature beverage at that pace sure, but not the usual latte or mocha or straight shot or macchiato etc. Damn well better be able to deliver those at the highest quality level averaging 1:30 or bye-bye from our Houses. Seriously. Think barista competition level quality AND speed, that's a top flight professional serious barista day in and day out. Piece of cake, not kidding around. Hell no I ain't talkin' drive through 52 syrup flavors who gives a rip about the actual espresso except for caffeine, but rather mostly porcelain baby for a goodly percentage of extreme palate clientele. Great coffee can be culinary and efficiently expediently produced!

 

Not saying you always need to produce at that clip, but when there's a line and the pressure's on you'd best be able to deliver. Hell yes quality counts, but at 7 bev per minute max pace when it counts you'll go broke on payroll (or at best never make a profit) because basically you'd need 3 or 4 baristas on duty to do what one should be able to do. Indeed there's a time and place for leisurely production while chatting with the customer, and even when there's a line chatting with customers is appropriate and even essential, but when slammed more limited. We speed test making three espresso based beverages, do them in under 5 minutes and at quality, or you don't work our bars plain and simple. It's really not that difficult if you know what you're doing.

 

10 people in line, 7 minutes per beverage, 10th person in line served 70 minutes later? I don't think so by any stretch of the imagination. Which I realize (now) isn't what said. Waiting seven minutes, well if solo with 10 people in line even at 1:30 per bev the 10th person WOULD have to wait 15 minutes which not too many would do so yeah, better be able to deliver quality at speed!

 

I'd go back and revise/delete parts of my diatribe but hey, have coffee to bag:)

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Permalink Reply by Sue Harnly on April 21, 2011 at 9:07pm

Thanks Mike, John and Christos! Much to consider i know and never a black and white answer. I agree with the thinking that generally, people want quick, efficient, quality drinks. What i have learned and continue to learn is that our kind of business, or at least my business, it has got to be about volume AND quality. Profit margins are slim so we have got to get the larger number of drinks out the door but yet they gotta be good! i am looking forward to others ideas! Thanks all.....

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Permalink Reply by John Socks on April 21, 2011 at 9:36pm

three minutes, give or take.

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Permalink Reply by olivier dutil on April 21, 2011 at 9:39pm

Well i say yes if there is no line up and you order the drink and you the first one in line well 1 to 2 minute max! but per exemple  today i add a 20 to 25 drink line up on my printer . on the 2 group machine with 2 barista (one pulling shot ,one steaming and pouring) add there drink in 5 to 10 minute with i think its fair. One thing sure i wont go down in quality for speed.

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Permalink Reply by John P on April 22, 2011 at 1:27am

Mike,

 

Didn't read that everyone should wait, but people will wait. Perhaps it's total time... line + drink. 

obviously everyone shouldn't have a long wait, in fact most people shouldn't have a long wait. Getting 20-30 people through the door in an hour is a different time flow than 20 people who come in the door in a twenty minute span. 

 

What about time in line?  What's better 10 minutes in line and one minute drink time, or five minutes in line and a two minute drink time? What about fifteen minutes in line and 45 second drink time?  Too many factors.

 

Simply put, if you need to put a clock to it, you're probably taking too long.

 

 

 

 

 

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Permalink Reply by Daniel Demers on April 22, 2011 at 8:36am

I think it would be important to distinguish between time it takes for a barista to make and serve a drink, and how long someone should be waiting for a drink.  If there is no line and no other drinks to be made, then prep time and wait time are the same, but if there is a line then that must be taken into consideration.

 

In my opinion, I think a 5-7 minute wait for a customer from the time they order to the time they get their drink is a reasonable goal to strive for assuming it is busy.  Even if it is very busy I think the goal of 5-7min should be the same, but to increase production you would obviously need to increase the number of baristas.  One can only go so fast :)  At the shop I work at there are times where we get slammed by summertime tourists and such, and a 10+ minute wait for a drink will happen, but when you get nearly 5 orders of drink per minute it gets tough to keep up, even with two baristas working two machines! And we even use Swift grinders (which are not my favorite but they are efficient) which speeds up the process a bit.

 

As far as time in line, I think limiting the wait to 5-10min max even during rushes would be ideal.  Of course, like everything else, it depends on many things...

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Permalink Reply by Brady on April 22, 2011 at 7:25pm

My wife used to work with the customer experience team at a large bank. Up until recently, one of her ongoing projects was measuring customer wait time at banking centers around the country against their internal goals. Within their group it was understood that customer satisfaction wasn't negatively impacted until wait time began to exceed 5 minutes. There are a couple of caveats...

 

In their world "wait time" means from the time a customer walks in the door until they are able to begin their transaction. Once they are in process, the wait time is over. I'm not sure exactly how that translates in the world where there are often two waits: waiting to place an order and waiting to pick up a drink.

 

That assumption assumes normal operations in front of the waiting customer. A 5 minute wait while an adequately staffed team takes care of a queue of customers is far different than an understaffed team or employees apparently goofing off. Customer perception is everything.

 

Her quote, after reading the beginnings of this post over my shoulder, was "its all about managing customer expectations." The 5 minute wait time bogey is a nice clean number, helpful for planning and modeling... but only covers part of the story.

 

Internally, we try hard to minimize wait time before placing an order. I'm disappointed if a customer has to wait more than 5 minutes from the time they walk through the door until the time they leave. Working backwards, I ought to be able to execute a "typical" drink in under 1.5 minutes. The order and pay transaction should take that amount of time or less. This means that in the cashier+barista model a continuous line of single drinks will stack up a little bit in front of the barista. Multiples will stack up faster. Thinking about it, for us 5 minutes prior to placing their order and another couple of minutes before receiving their drink seems to be typical "very busy" upper-end wait time.

 

Remember though, if a customer walks in to a full store, there will be an expectation that they will wait in line for a few minutes. You don't walk into a packed restaurant and expect to get a table immediately. The same goes while waiting on their drink... if the barista has a rail full of tickets and everyone seems to be working hard to get things done, they'll be alot more forgiving of a 5 minute wait than if someone is kinda standing around or not apparently working to get them through. Manage expectations and visibly work hard to get them taken care of.

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Permalink Reply by olivier dutil on April 22, 2011 at 8:26pm

Been working in restaurant for over 14 years  (6years as head chef of busy fine dining restaurant) i notice that if you devide the wait time in fraction customer don t notice that much.

What do i mean is that a costumer notice the waiting time in line then its is coming in a neutral zone when order ther drink to the customer . so if the barista is really back up and there is a line . well if the cashier slow down the past a little bit in the ordering well , it give a little chance to the barista and bring the time betwen the ordering time to the drink delivery down witch is the  wait periode that the customer will notice and remeber the most since it is the last time spend in your coffee shop.(long wait for ordering will often been blame on picky customer but long waiting time for coffee will be blame on the staff>)

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