Specialty Coffee Retailer is a publication for owners, managers and employees of retail outlets that sell specialty coffee. Its scope includes best sales practices, supplies, business trends and anything else to assist the small coffee retailer.
Issue link: https://read.dmtmag.com/i/55324
EDITORIAL OFFICE 1030 W. Higgins Road, Suite 230 Park Ridge, IL 60068 • (847) 720-5600 Visit us online: www.specialty-coff ee.com E-mail: specialtycoffee@m2media360.com pan demetrakakes, editor M To avoid pain, train y fi rst paid job, at age 16, was at a fast-food place. It was, to put it kindly, a chaotic work environment. Th e owner was rarely present and leſt it to us teenage inmates to run the asylum, with predictable results. To pick one of the least outrageous examples: One customer ordered a chocolate malt. I asked the manager, "What's the diff erence between a malt and a shake?" "Write 'M' on the lid." "But isn't a malt supposed to have malt powder?" "Shhhhhh." Th at experience leſt me with two lessons: A lifelong avoidance of malts, and an appreciation for the importance of training—the subject of this issue's cover story. Job training is one of those things that usually is appreciated only in its absence. And it's absent from too many workplaces, both industrial and retail. It's easy to understand why. Training takes time, and time is money. It's simpler to just throw a new employee into a job and leave it up to him or her to catch on. But the time you save up front by not training, you more than pay for down the road in terms of mistakes and lost sales opportunities. Th is is especially true in foodservice, where timing is everything. A glitch in service, handled poorly, can cascade until the entire café lurches toward disaster. If timing is important in foodservice, it's doubly so in specialty coff ee, where the diff erence between a great drink and a mediocre one is literally a matter of seconds. Th e individual skills that a barista must master—measuring, tamping, frothing, pouring—are hard enough. Putting them together in sequence, reliably, time and again, in front of a line of customers, is a huge challenge. Even if you're lucky enough to hire an experienced barista, that doesn't relieve you of your training obligation. Every coff eehouse has its own way of doing things, and the smartest bosses realize that they need to spell out just what their way is. Doing so is the best way to ensure that employees meet expectations in terms of effi ciency, customer service and all the other aspects of job performance. In her book "Nickel and Dimed," Barbara Ehrenreich recounts her experiences of trying to survive on various low-level jobs. Th e fi rst one was as a coff ee shop waitress. On what turned out to be her last day, she and the other waitresses got so far behind, and orders got so backed up, that the disaster spread into the kitchen and service broke down completely. Ehrenreich literally fl ed the coff ee shop, walking out and never returning—which she could do because she was really an accomplished author instead of, say, a single mother who desperately needed the job. One of her conclusions from that experience: Th ere really is no such thing as "unskilled labor." Every job, no matter how seemingly menial or unsophisticated, requires a skill set. A good training program, even an informal one, can help put that skill set in place. Good training is the best way of simultaneously setting expectations and helping employees meet them. 4 | February 2012 • www.specialty-coffee.com EDITORIAL STAFF Editor PRODUCTION STAFF Art Director Production Manager CIRCULATION STAFF Vice President of Circulation & Collateral Services SALES STAFF Sales Manager List Rental & Reprint Services EXECUTIVE STAFF Group Publisher CONTRIBUTING EDITORS Ed Avis, Jack Groot, Maura Keller, Caroline Rath, Alan Richman, Brenda Russell, Peter Surkowski EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD Jason Burton, lab5702 Desiree Farden, Big Train, Inc. Jack Groot, JP's Coff ee And Espresso Bar Wes Herman, Th e Woods Coff ee Meghan Hubbs, Equal Exchange Rob Jeffries, North Atlantic Specialty Bag Craig Min, LAMIL Coff ee Lon LaFlamme, Dillanos Coff ee Roasters Kate LaPoint, Sound Provisions, Inc. Joe Monaghan, La Marzocco Tom Palm, Design & Layout Services Steve Schnitzler, Port City Java® Andi C. Trindle, Atlantic Specialty Coff ee Bill Waddington, TeaSource Corporate Offi ce: 1030 W. Higgins Road, Suite 230 Park Ridge, IL 60068 PRESIDENT/CEO VP FINANCE & OPERATIONS VP OF CIRCULATION & COLLATERAL SERVICES PRODUCTION & OPERATIONS DIRECTOR SUBSCRIPTION INFORMATION AND REQUESTS Phone (845) 856-2229 Marion Minor Gerald Winkel Joanne Juda-Prainito Mary Jo Tomei Fax (845) 856-5822 Subscriptions: $39 for one year, $61 for two years, U.S.; $48 for one year, $72 for two years, Canada; $110 for one year, all other countries (includes airmail postage). Single copies $10 each; Annual Buyers Guide $25. Payable in U.S. funds only. Customer Service: (847) 763-9565 PRESS RELEASES: Press releases on supplies, services and new products are welcomed and encouraged. Direct them to Specialty Coff ee Retailer. Color print photography is preferred, slides and transparencies are accepted. Specialty Coff ee Retailer reserves the right to edit all submissions. Pan Demetrakakes pan@m2media360.com Britt Menendez Madeline Minor Joanne Juda-Prainito Brian Grau (314) 487-6568 Cheryl Naughton (678) 292-6054 Charlie Forman cforman@m2media360.com Membership applied for July 2010 Specialty Coff ee Retailer (ISSN 1077-3460) is published monthly by Bev-Al Communications, 1030 W. Higgins Road, Suite 230, Park Ridge, IL 60068. Copyright© 2012 by Bev-Al Communications Inc. Postmaster please send address corrections to: Specialty Coff ee Retailer, P.O. Box 4290, Port Jervis, NY 12771. Periodicals postage paid at Port Jervis, NY and additional mailing offi ces.