REGIONAL UPDATE
Peace Coffee
Finding and keeping
good employees
BY ED AVIS
F
inding good people is essential to a coffee shop's success,
and keeping them is even more important. Coffee shops
across the country face both challenges. Here are reports
from five shops in different parts of the United States about
how they deal with hiring, training and retaining.
M IDWEST
Peace Coffee
Minneapolis, Minn.
Peace Coffee in Minneapolis is a business with a mission.
The roaster part of the business was founded in 1996 by the
nonprofit Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, with the
aim of helping support coffee farmers by purchasing their
beans at a fair price. Peace Coffee's coffee shop, Wonderland
Park Coffee Shop, opened in 2010.
"Peace Coffee's mission is to make exceptional-tasting, organic
fair trade coffee that sustains the livelihoods of the people who
grow, roast, and sell it; preserves and protects the environment
that produces it; and delights the taste buds of those who drink it,"
says Lee Wallace, Peace Coffee's "Queen Bean," aka CEO.
30
Wonderland Park Coffee Shop is located in a building
constructed in 1924 in Minneapolis' Longfellow
neighborhood. They named the shop after Wonderland
Amusement Park, which operated in that neighborhood from
1905 to 1911.
"We took a lot of inspiration from the park when we
created the design of the shop," Wallace says.
The shop's distinctive features include a floor-to-ceiling
mural of blue mountains and a large exposed brick wall. The
business employs 30 people, 20 of whom work in the roaster
and 10 in the shop. Wallace reports that her annual turnover
is 22 percent, a figure that has climbed a bit over the past couple of
years as they have added more part-time positions.
They fill positions mostly by word-of-mouth, referrals, and
posts on their website. "Depending on the position, we may
employ social media in the quest for the right candidate as
well," she says.
Peace Coffee's benefits package is exceptional. They offer
paid health insurance, a matching 401(k), paid sick and
vacation time, and maternity/paternity leave.
"And of course free coffee!" Wallace says. "There are also
