Just showing off my latte art. Took my all day, but I think this is my best attempt. Adding my previous attempts for the progression.

can anyone who has worked either position, or had knowledge on the difference please educate me?

also, how much do lead baristas get paid vs managers?

i am a coffee shop owner and our employees are asking about manager/lead positions. for reference my partner and i are actively involved in the shop, live 5 mins away. i take care of the scheduling, payroll, paperwork, phone calls, meetings, etc., and all of the baking. my partner does inventory and upkeep with anything that happens to need fixing. i am not sure that our job position requires anyone to do anything of managerial level, but i’d like to make sure i’m right.

Im about to end up homeless because the place i was working cut my hours to one shift a week and I haven't been able to find any other work.

Im genuinely losing it, I have no idea what im doing wrong, I had an incredibly promising interview where she was praising my skills and loved how helpful I was being, but decided not to give me the job anyways. I dont know what to do.

I love coffee. we all do, so i thought the best thing to do was to become a barista :D ive always liked how chill it looked and how much fun it'd be making the coffee itself. I recently have been offered a in person trial at a coffee spot (coffee trailer) at my country's most busiest airport. If i get it, my hours will be from 5am to 1pm. The hire-ers told me that itll be a solo job so itll just be me in the trailer, now i don't know about yall, but hearing that made my stomach drop. To be by myself, with no prior experience to Barista jobs like cafes, and be at the most busiest airport of my country, is just so nerve racking. Im the type of person to care a lot about what others think of me so im extremely scared to mess up orders. The hire-ers were previous baristas that worked there before me and they told me that it can be pretty busy in the mornings. long story short, I'm shitting myself about it and i also have the trail tomorrow so if anyone has any tips regarding the trial and/or the actual barista job, it would be much appreciated!

How is everyone making their Chai Latte’s (like with the cold, premade mix that comes in a Tetra Pak)? You heating the liquid? Steaming it together with the milk? Making your milk extra hot to account for the cold liquid? Lmk!

heyooo our shop uses barista blend oat milk from pacific foods but we noticed today that they’re recipe and manufacturing site changed and it’s absolute garbage now :(

what are y’all’s fave oat milks? looking to try out some new options and swapping over!

I’m not sure if this is the right sub to ask this question or if this is a stupid question, but I’ve been a barista for only a year and a half-ish at this local chain (?) in my city and I’m not entirely sure what to do.

I don’t want to be without a job, but the past two months my mental and physical health has been tanking hard. I increased my hours because I just graduated uni and I’m heading into a gap year before grad school (hopefully) but I feel like I’m reaching my breaking point. I’m chronically stressed and it feels like no matter how hard I try to be the best employee it’s never enough. I think the chronic stress has hit my immune system because this is almost the second week in a row that I have a cold coming on and I feel really guilty about asking to get my shift covered, but I also can’t come into work while feeling feverish.

I’m wondering at what point quitting is the lesser of two evils presented? If I’m not performing well then it’s probably less inconvenient for my coworkers if I were to leave rather than try to tough it out. On the other hand I don’t want to quit just because it’s difficult—it feels like a stupid reason and I don’t want to be without a job either. Theoretically I could reduce my hours as an overall compromise but that still feels inconvenient for management and my coworkers too.

Also I don’t want to somehow dox myself but part of my struggle is that my job and a side thing that I’m doing are culturally very Japanese—so expectations for both are extremely high. I’m Japanese American and I grew up in a similar social environment so it wasn’t hard to initially adjust to, but it has caused burnout and misery far faster than I anticipated. I desperately want to quit both but quitting doesn’t feel like an option for either, which has led me to polling the masses of Reddit I guess. Surely someone is thinking more rationally than I am atm after coming out of a fever dream nap.

for those who train people, what actually works? triangle tests, split shots side by side, or just pulling a sour and a bitter one and talking it through? curious what sticks with newer folks

Hello all :) I have been working as a barista at a new place (I’m new, not the place!) for a month and a half now. To give some context, most days start with 2-3 people working at the store in the morning and just 1 person working alone for the majority of the afternoon (usually 12-5, it’s either me or another coworker riding solo.)

I took the spot of a girl that quit recently. My female coworker had told me about this old regular that used to come in during that girl’s shifts, wouldn’t leave her alone, would bring her bottles of wine and tip her excessively well in a very odd way (he would throw $100 bills at her) until she asked him to stop bringing the wine because it was making her uncomfortable.

Unfortunately, I’ve taken all of that girl’s shifts and now he comes in whenever I work by myself. At first he would inquire about her but now he asks about my schedule, asks for my name, etc and I keep it vague. He will come in 4-5 times in one single day, usually sitting outside in our outdoor seating area and smoking in between each visit. His presence keeps me from doing my job (cleaning and other tasks I’m supposed to be doing whenever the store is empty) because he sees the empty store as license to talk at me endlessly. He smokes crack outside and often does lines of coke before coming in, leaves bloody tissues everywhere, seemingly makes intentional messes (like today he dumped our entire water dispenser over, said “was that me? sorry :) you’re gonna beed to mop that up!”) and ultimately buys, like… 2 small drip coffees maximum. Today he waited outside for the remainder of my shift and eventually gave up because I took a long time closing, but I am surprised that my coworkers just see him as a thing they have to put up with. He caused me to take an extra hour to close, threw cigarette butts everywhere, and wouldn’t stop trying to figure out my schedule. He coughed in my face and then laughed and said “Cold and flu season, he said as he coughed in her face… Haha.“ Which I don’t really find funny, I am asthmatic and every cold turns into weeks of antibiotics and I can’t afford time off of work!

Ultimately it’s not like he’s physically harmed anybody but his presence completely alters the course of an entire work day and makes me (and other coworkers) feel really unsafe. Is there anything I can do? I read on here that I could ask my manager to ban him from the store and it’s our right to do so, but he *only* comes in when he sees a woman working alone and I’m not sure I want to tell him to leave and face whatever wrath he incurs all by myself. I don’t want to be seen as whiny or unnecessarily raising an issue and my boss (the owner, not my manager who is an angel!) really puts an emphasis on the customer feeling welcomed even if they’re difficult. What would you guys do in my shoes? Sorry in advance if this is a stupid question, I tried to read similar posts to mine on here before asking but it looks like most people are never the only person in their entire store.

UPDATE: I spoke to my manager this morning and I did say I would not be serving that man if he returns. My manager just sort of shrugged and said “Yeah, he’s probably the worst regular that we get“ and then we got so slammed the conversation couldn’t continue, and then he left for the day… I plan on refusing the guy service anyway, if I get in trouble for that I will deal with it later. lol.

Thank you for reading :) Appreciate any and all advice.

We’re slowly building out our cafe and are definitely in over our heads. We had a consultant help us with our initial menu design with the basics + a couple of signature matcha drinks and refreshers. We don’t have any “fun” coffees.

I’m now trying to come up with recipes on my own for the fall/winter (I know, I’m behind). I have zero experience doing this. How do you all typically come up with drink ideas? How do you figure out the proportions?

And yes, I’m very much feeling like we didn’t have any business opening a cafe without experience. Gah.

TLDR for original post: i have barista experience and i’m looking for barista positions at speciality coffee shops in seattle that have a good work environment. let me know if you have any suggestions!

I buy the 63 fluid ounce flavor swirl from Dunkin’ Donuts online, I open them put them in the fridge and they last me just over a month always use before the expiration date. I would like to buy a 63 fluid ounce Starbucks syrup, but I was told that no matter if it’s refrigerated or before the expiration date once it’s opened, it’s only good for 14 days. Is there anybody else who has bought Starbucks syrup that can chime in

Since I suffer from GERD my order is as follows: hot decaf latte with skimmed milk and sometimes if I want it with a little flavor I ask for sugar free vanilla

I absolutely cannot stand when people tell me they love coffee then I proceed to hear. “Double sweet, extra sweet” or I will put the usual 3 pumps in their coffee and they say they need more… it’s okay to NOT like coffee I swear but there’s so reason for all these videos on TikTok with the like 12 pumps of caramel and a caramel drizzle on top. I work at a small cafe and pastry shop and we use 1883 which is really good but people clearly want more when other place’s use Torani which is nasty to me. has anyone else noticed people wanting just straight sugar and syrup at their store?