Being technically skilled as a leader is a small part of what makes one effective. The larger part of cafe effective leadership has to do with emotional skill and how we either create or destroy relationship in the daily life of our coffee businesses. The impact of our over-focus on technical skill leads to many cultural issues that eventually show up in the partial or total downfall of your business. Today I am please to welcome back to the show Jonathan Raymond, who is the author of the book Good Authority, which we discussed on this show 5 years ago. He is back to help us learn about emotio ..read more

A mentor to Danny Meyer once told him "Business is Problems". This was said to point out that challenges are not only inescapable, they are actually a part of the fabric of what we do. Unfortunately many of us are consider the problems of business as nothing more than a nuisance to be eliminated vs an opportunity to be embraced. Today on Shift Break we will be talking about how and why we should embrace problems in the cafe and see them as blessings that allow us to grow our business and ourselves.  Listen to these related Shift Break episodes next: When Small Problems Grow Up Don't Wast ..read more

There is no neutral. Only forward or backward. Your coffee shop is not a static thing that will simply take care of itself. The people, space, product, and culture all need to be given care and attention to prevent breaking down over time. The best way to do this is to always be fine-tuning the cafe. Today on Shift Break we will be talking about why fine-tuning, optimization, and efficiencies matter in the shop and how you can approach the process in a way that is effective and fulfills your business's larger mission and goals. Listen to these related Shift Break episodes next: Fix the Small ..read more

There are many great coffee shops and roasters in this world. What makes a great cafe in my mind is intentionality, a focus on kindness, consistency, hospitality, and quality as a pursuit in service of those things. Living in Louisville, KY I am fortunate to be only 2 hours away from one of my favorite places that I feel has consistently exemplified those virtues. Crema Coffee Roasters! Today on Founder Friday we get the pleasure of talking with the co-founder of Crema Coffee Roasters, Rachel Lehman.  In 2008, Rachel Lehman, a coffee professional with over a decade of experience in baris ..read more

Designing your coffee shop can be one of the most exciting parts of the opening or scaling process. Exciting, that is, until we come up against resistance to our great ideas in the form of space limitations, quirks, historic preservations, zoning, etc.  On today's Shift Break we will be talking about how we can  embrace the limitations and constraints of our spaces in a way that moves us from frustration to actually being energized and confident in our unique cafe. You should listen to these episodes next: SHIFT BREAK : 2 Tips for Bar Design Are You Open? 169 : Designing the Guest ..read more

What is the "Best" coffee shop? As long as coffee and coffee shops have been around, us humans have been rather preoccupied with what the best coffee of coffee shop is. We have our own personal scale of judgment, then there are local popularity contests put on by city papers. Most famously over the past decade or two we have developed barista, brewing, coffee shop, and cupping competitions to determine quality. All of this is to my mind, not just to try to figure out "the best", but to extol virtues we desire to see continued in that category assuming that if they do then it will be a net gai ..read more

Getting into coffee and then pursuing it as a career takes your through a few different phases of maturation. One of the first phases is where you focus only on one very specific thing to the detriment of many others. For me, the world could be on fire, but as long as I was behind the espresso machine and dialed in, all was good. Or so I thought.  On today's Shift Break we will be talking about why it is necessary for coffee professionals in the cafe to focus on the whole cafe and the experience guests have in it, not just one small part of that big picture.  Recommended episodes ..read more

 When we talk about our employees it is common to talk about "setting up staff for success", but what does that really look like. Talking about it can sometimes wrongly convince us that we are actually doing it.   On today's Shift Break we will be talking about what it looks like to set your staff up for success in very practical terms that, if applied, will transform the relationship to one of trust based on evidence in action, not just talk. Recommended episodes: If you are a cafe owner and want to work one on one with me to bring your shop to its next level and help bring you ..read more

A shop is maintained by the attention and repeated actions we put into it. We need to make sure our systems and tools are crafted well in order to make sure these intentional actions and our best attention is circulated through the whole of the organization. Today we will be talking about 7 things that I believe should be standard in the work we do throughout the day. When we apply these tools and practices we will see a bug change in the way both our staff and guests experience the coffee shop.  Related Episodes: 468: How to Be a Shift Lead Pre-Closing Madness Work Alchemy Key Holder ..read more

Growing the business is probably the number one concern in the cafe industry. In general we tend to look at growth as either scaling the size of the business physically, or the revenue and profitability. What if I told you there was another way you can look at growth? On today's Shift Break we will be talking about ways to look at growth that don't rely only on the usual defaults of revenue and scale, but give you another option to be established and fulfilled as an owner. Recommended episodes: 469: Unremarkable Hospitality and Cafe Terroir SHIFT BREAK: Embracing Your Constraints Building yo ..read more