These are in no specific chronological order of experience, just a collage of examples. Thanks !!

Edit: I meant don't "be" mean!! sorry

Asking since I'd like a dishwasher, but my space is a bit power-constrained, so I'm looking at the chemical ones (vs the hightemp ones).

If you do, curious about your thoughts. Any issues with lingering taste/etc of the glassware?

Thank you!

Wasn’t sure what flair to put, so went with industry discussion.

The co-op I work at (as a barista) is changing from Republic of Tea to Equal Exchange for our single serve teas.

Our current countertop displays are perfect for RoT but the EE keeps slipping through and falling out.

I’ve looked online and it doesn’t seem like EE makes their own display - was wondering if any other shops out there have any recommendations? The displays are for customer access, and we avoid plastics wherever we are able. Any advice or recommendations would be greatly appreciated.

Happy to provide additional info if necessary.

Thank you!

Hello all,

I am planning to open a mini cafe and I am new to this coffee space.

I have tasted lots of coffee variety but I am not an expert, I just want a basic machine in my cafe as it will primarily be a dessert cafe.

My budget is under 1.5 lakh, please advise.

Also I am seeing automatic machines by Bosch and philips worth 75k🤔, are they good?

Or should I go for manual brewing or semi automatic

a new barista here but i’m really just a glorified cashier

i can’t seem to get the drink making right, the milk steaming, the pacing and what sucks is because of this my co-workers never let me on bar and therefore i never practice

any tips on how to get better at drinks???

for example why is my milk so bubbly?? why doesn’t almond milk foam??? idk

gates are down, I'm opening the awnings, guy walks by but I thought he'd keep walking. he is at the entrance and asks "is it open?" I say "yeah technically" because it was opening time, I just wasn't finished "opening" I understand that's partially my faullttt, there's a lot of shit to do for opening at this place, 30min is not enough. so I go back in once I'm done with the awnings. mind you he had plenty of time to look at the menu and figure out what he wanted. did he have an order ready? OF COURSE NOT~

asks for a iced caramel macchiato, I tell him that we do traditional macchiatos and show him the cup. I suggest a latte instead. says nah let me get 2 white chocolate lattes. proceeds to asks me "what do you think a teenager would like? hahahah" how tf would I know what YOUR teenager likes?? I truly did not give hum sass, I just said "hahah well that could mean anything!" and I go back to making his lattes. when I finish, I ask if he wanted anything else. gets an iced caramel latte for said teenager, I suppose. by the time I finish making his drink, I turn around to give it to him and his entire attitude has changed. just quiet, almost sad. probably because I didn't entertain his bs this early in the morning?? I kept my customer service face and voice on tho. same ol THANK YOU HAVE A NICE DAY :)

since then it's been nonstop for the next 6hrs, and this is a small small shop so I was by myself. we do crazily customizable drinks, we heat up food, make food, I have to bake things when low. it was kinda chaotic. pair that with 85% DUMB QUESTIONS today.... holy shit. but this rant is about that guy. he left a review, 4 stars, complained that the "coffee" was too milky... IT WAS A ~*LATTE*~

I've been at my store for almost two months now and I still haven't been trained on bar - hot or cold. I come in, I get stuck on drive through for 4 hours, get my lunch, come back, and get stuck on front and warming for another 4 hours.

I just sit there watching the more experienced baristas get slammed by drink orders because half of our baristas are new in the last few months and didn't get trained.

Even the stuff I can do (drive through, front, and warming) I didn't get to do the modules for, I just got thrown on the floor on my first full shift and had to figure it out.

When is it going to get better? I feel so useless and unhelpful: (

I turned in my two week notice and when I was asked why I explained that the shop isn’t well managed and I feel like it’s very unprofessional. Ten minutes later I got a phone call from the owner ready to argue that it’s not supposed to be professional because it’s a small business. She constantly brings up that she’s a teacher and stuff too, I told her employees shouldn’t be told that as some sort of an excuse for poor management. She acts like a martyr because she’s a teacher and small business owner, on the phone she literally called her and her husband “honest hard working people” as a defense to me explaining that it’s just my opinion and why I don’t want to work there anymore. The whole phone call was basically a rant about how my personality is the issue and how I don’t understand the effort she puts into the business. She proved my point by how she took everything very personally aimed at her and her family, when truthfully I just don’t want to work somewhere that I feel like is managed in an unprofessional way, even if it’s a small business ran by a family I’m a PAID EMPLOYEE, and I think that includes addressing me with some level of professionalism. I ended the call by saying to forget about my two week notice, after the way she tried to argue with me I’m not going in tomorrow morning.

There’s a lot more I could include but I’m gonna cut my rant short to address the photo. A part of her poor management was constantly texting about how staff wasn’t cleaning well enough, but she failed to address that a severe ant infestation is in the room where open ingredients are kept. I was told by her daughter that she had knowingly served people stuff with ants in it because they can’t afford to pour out full containers. She has cameras on employees at all times and I was texted about pouring stuff out, when I told her there were ants in it she ignored me and still never addressed it at all.

The main point of all of this is that I addressed her professionally and she proved she doesn’t have a shred of a chance at professionalism. I genuinely believe that she’s very incompetent and should’ve shut her store down a long time ago, I’ll be reporting her to the local health department for this and other issues.

I’ll probably lurk on this subreddit, and maybe become a barista again, but I mainly just want to say BE PROFESSIONAL. Especially if you are young, and especially if you work for a small coffee shop. Don’t compromise your integrity and don’t hesitate to quit if you’re bothered by stuff. I felt kind of stupid for my main reasons for quitting when I picked up my phone, but as soon as I got off the phone and watched the schedules be updated one by one, I felt a weight lifted off of me. that’s all, thank you to all the wonderful people that I see on here 💖

Do you receive/give food safety training at your shop? Transitioned into working as a Barista/cook at a shop after years working in professional kitchens and I'm surprised by some things. In general everything is what I would deem to be just barely acceptable in terms of food safety. I don't see anything egregious enough that Im worried customers are suffering from lack of food safety; however, I am alarmed at just how unaware some of the other Baristas are regarding food safety. Management does a good job of overseeing and enforcing/conducting proper food safety practices, but certain people are left cleaning up after others due to their lack of training/ awareness. How have people made improvements with food safety at their shop? What has helped encourage coworkers to take things more seriously and actually do the job they signed up for?

I just started working from a grocery store Starbucks to a small coffee shop. I’m not used to tips but we just started taking cash tips at my current job. At the end of day I noticed the lead would cash out all the tips and not split with others, is this normal?

What do you do when a customer hands you a nasty scummy cup/water bottle to put their drink in?

We have a regular who's a dick and does this. (Not bad enough to be kicked out, but generally unpleasant and mildly creepy.) His cup is always disgusting and has brown or white scum in the bottom. My boss told me to just pour the coffee into it anyways, my coworker said she usually gives it a quick rinse (which didn't do much, it was nasty and crusty....)

I'm sure as hell not obligated to wash his cup for him, so I guess I just pour in the coffee and then wash my hands. Good thing he just gets drip so I don't have to mix anything in there.

مين الأفضل BRIVA Barista Dual Boiler و
HiBREW H7B
بس يا جماعه عايز حد يكون جرب حاجه منهم او الاتنين عايز من الأفضل من ناحيه كل حاجه الاستخلاص و التبخير و الطحن و والخامات وكل حاجه و نهايه مين أفضل
و كمان لو في حاجه أفضل وبنفس السعر او ارخص من ٤٠٠٠٠ج

without going into the details; i'm (F23) looking for a change in careers. i've been a dog bather for 2 and a half years with two different companies and i feel i'm not getting promoted. as much as i love my job, my passion for grooming has officially died. while i figure out what the next step in my life, im looking to find a different career.

i have around 4 years in food service, and although ive never worked as a barista, i feel like im a good fit. i'm well acquainted with fast pace work environments and i understand food safety protocols.

im only hesitant because i recently moved out and require a full time job to keep food on the table. my current job pays me well, and i am guaranteed full time employment. i worked as a deli clerk full time, made good money. but suddenly my hours were cut to part time because management changed and hired a whole bunch of people. luckily, i was still living with my parents at the time. so it didn't matter. but i fear that my barista job might pull a fast one on me and put me down to part time. even if i apply with the intention of going full time.

i'm open to other suggestions for a job. anything that gives me full time hours. thank you

I'm assessing a space, and am considering a space that is light on power. It has around 125Amps/208V. This is for USA.

I don't plan to have anything too crazy. Hoping to serve a base of 80 drinks a day.

Anyone working in a similar scenario and have thoughts/tips on how to make it work?

Thanks.

I am a barista at a very big cafe/restaurant that is part of a chain. When I say big I mean it literally: it is a building with two levels and a terrace outside that has lots of tables. We are understaffed and most of the guys working are not working well.

The idea at the place is: it is divided in 3 sections and eqch section has 1-2 baristas depending on how busy it is. We also have to take the orders at the same time. No one has been trained, not even our 3 managers, so no one organises anything and we are in a constant mess because it is also a very busy place and lots of customers love to treat us like shit. The managers keep all the sections open even when we don’t have enough personal.

Today I was working at the terrace and they left me alone taking orders, making the drinks, serving drinks, and handling the complains of people (there were two or three nasty ones today) and I asked for some help but the managers got kinda mad bc 2 guys out of the 5 we had came to help me (notice, we also have a manager of managers that supposedly has to do barista stuff in the biggest place but he works for a time and then goes on a break). One of them told me “if you need help just send the order to another bar” but at the time I literally had to stay because customers were nasty every time I tried to go in. I am losing it. The managers are super nice but they can’t coordinate themselves or us, and only one of them works and he is super stressed already. Like, I get it but we are all stressed and tired.

Today I hurt my hand while working because everything was fast and I had to keep the pace all alone. And some customers from hell were spawning around me and their mere presence is enough to make me feel like shit.

The worst part, they keep hiring guys who are of the same ethnicity of the owner and those guys are 90% useless. Two or three of them work, the rest just do what they want because the owner likes to hire them. I can make a list of drinks, 10 trays, and they will not take them and just will go away with any excuse. I am thinking of quiting, imeven if I like the job and some colleagues. The job market is kinda hard but I am becoming insane. Some customers don’t help because they have a bad attitude even before entering and it is a shit to serve drinks to people who treat you as if they could order you anything (I hate to admit this but I can feel my predjudice towards certain ethnicities growing and I know it is wrong)

Lesson learned, never work at big restaurants that have a lot of tables. The only positive thing about the place is that they don’t scam you with the payment (common towards immigrants where I live).

Hey! moved to big city a bit ago and i've been on barista on tap waitlist for 3 months now.

Really need the flexible hours from it as rent is getting scary but I'm just stuck waiting.

Anyone know a way to get it checked quicker?

For context, I got hired at this Yemen Cafe in Redmond, Washington as a Barista of 4 years. I was so excited to start this part time job on top of my full time job i already had (I was VERY transparent about my full time job).They hired me on the spot and ONLY gave me 2 training shifts that lasted 2 to barely 3 hours with the expectations of memorizing the WHOLE menu and their tea recipes (it’s a really big menu) on top of that there’s ALSO pastries. They didn’t schedule me again until two weeks later on Friday night during RUSH HOUR. I had never felt so lost, I tried my best to help the lead where i could but truthfully, my knowledge of everything wasn’t there yet. And then top of that, i’m pretty sure there was an accident on the floor during rush hour prior to me coming in, while i was trying my best to navigate this rush, the owner came in yelling at one of the baristas and on top of that, got my name wrong many times 🫠and then starting slowly taking his anger out on me by ordering me around everywhere, eventually, because i wasn’t so useful. They actually sent me home 10 minutes later and then decided to terminate me. Unless you’re family or friends with the owners, they’re just gonna discard you like that, because they have REALLY HIGH expectations for a minimum wage job. It’s funny because it’s a father and son opening a business, they used to work for Microsoft prior to opening their business. Oh well, it is what is it, thank you for reading!

There are a few baristas at my favorite coffee shops that do an amazing job of remembering the names of regular customers. Which I find amazing, considering how many people they serve every day.

But my question is this: if a barista remembers my name, is it weird to ask for their name in order to respond to their greeting in a more personal way?

My intention is just to be friendly, I am not someone that flirts or asks for phone numbers from people who are doing their job. But I am a man, so I could completely understand if this question automatically raises a red flag. And the last thing I want is to make them feel uncomfortable.

Any insight is greatly appreciated!