Staffing & Labor
Safeguarding Baristas: A Guide to Preventing Common Café Injuries
Strategies for café owners to reduce barista strain and injuries through ergonomic design, equipment choices, and staff education.
Tags
Cafe Business
16 stories
- Staffing & Labor
Building a Safer Café: 5 Practical Policies for Staff and Guests
A safe and productive café relies on clear, actionable policies—not just good intentions. From anti-harassment rules and service guidelines to emergency protocols, these five measures help ensure everyone knows how to respond when challenges arise.
- Operations & Menus
Why One Café Chose to Shrink Its Kitchen and Refocus on Coffee
A small coffee shop's journey from ambitious food menus to a simpler partnership that cut waste and sharpened its coffee focus.
- Operations & Menus
From Street Cart to Storefront: Lessons in Mobile Coffee Entrepreneurship
Travas Clifton and Justin Hicks built Modcup Coffee Co. by first selling from a cart and a 1969 Citroën H Van near a New Jersey transit hub, then expanding to a café and roastery in Jersey City Heights. Their experience shows how mobile operations can lower the risk of opening a fixed location.
- Skills & Education
Dialing In the Grind: Why Coffee Demands Precision and How Training Delivers It
A look at why grind accuracy matters more than many brewers expect, how espresso standards define the target, and a hands-on field test for getting close—plus a cautionary tale about the perils of fear-based grinder policies.
- Roasteries
A Secondhand Roaster, a Family Rift and a Detour Through the Dutch Countryside
How a Brooklyn coffee outfit got its hands on a vintage German roasting machine — after a few unexpected hurdles.
- Operations & Menus
The Congregation as Coffee Customer: How Churches Became a Specialty Coffee Channel
Roasters and café operators are discovering that Sunday morning crowds can support serious coffee programs—and that faith communities bring their own quirks as clients.
- Openings & Closures
A Midtown East Coffee Bar That Rethinks the Café Layout
Irving Farm Coffee Roasters partnered with Studio Vural on a Midtown East café whose brass-inlaid floors and white oak surfaces nod to the surrounding architecture, while a walled-off kitchen aims to ease the congestion common in coffee bars.
- Staffing & Labor
Building Strong Café Leadership: Spot Talent, Train Well, and Let Go
A practical look at spotting managerial potential, developing it deliberately, and trusting your team enough to step away from day-to-day operations.
- Staffing & Labor
Efficiency Training Begins With the Basics
Efficiency is essential for a successful cafe, yet it's also one of the trickiest skills to teach. Here's how to start building efficient practices and passing them on to your team.
- Roasting Craft
Beyond the Brew: How Barrel-Aged Coffee Is Shaping Roastery Menus
Roasters are putting green coffee into spent spirits casks to build limited-run lots with layered flavor. Here is how the process works, what it means for café menus, and what a barrel actually costs.
- Marketing & Branding
Turning Café Retail Into a Brand Statement
A thoughtful approach to café merchandise can transform shelf items into a meaningful part of the shop’s identity and bottom line.
- Staffing & Labor
Interview Questions That Reveal How Candidates Think and Collaborate
Hiring conversations go better when interviewers prepare thoughtful, open-ended prompts and listen for how applicants solve problems, receive criticism, and work with others.
- Events & Trade Shows
Rethinking Who Can Take Part in Coffee Trade Shows
Trade shows offer camaraderie and learning, yet cost, distance, and exclusionary practices keep many would-be participants away. Organizers and industry members are weighing how to widen access.
- Skills & Education
When Espresso Training Teaches the Wrong Lesson
A barista trainee's shot reveals how informal knowledge can override careful extraction practice—and what proper pump engagement actually looks like.
- Operations & Menus
Café Quality Upgrade: Lessons from a Two-Year Transformation
A coffee business owner shares how he rebuilt his café program by focusing on people, questioning every detail, and investing heavily in training.
