Guides
Who to hire for a coffee shop, and how to tell
Hiring reliable coffee shop staff: what to screen for, questions that predict a morning shift, how to run a paid trial, and the reference calls worth making.
What to take away
- Reliability is a different thing from skill, and it is what a morning bar actually needs. Screen for it first.
- The strongest predictor is a paid trial shift at the hour you need covered, not an interview.
- Ask about specific past situations rather than about qualities. People describe qualities they do not have and struggle to invent a Tuesday.
- Decide your questions before you meet anyone, and ask everyone the same ones.
- Employment rules, including anything about young workers and tips, come from the US Department of Labor and your state labor agency.
Screen for the shift you cannot cover
Write down the shift that hurts most when it goes uncovered. In most shops that is the early one. Then screen against it directly.
Ask three practical questions before anything else. Can they reliably reach the shop at that hour, by what route, and what happens when that route fails? Do they have commitments that conflict with the days you need? Have they worked that hour before, and what did they find hard about it?
Nothing about coffee yet. A person who cannot get there at half past six is not a candidate however good their latte art.
The six interview questions
Ask everyone the same list, and ask for specifics.
Interview Questions That Predict Behavior
- Busiest hourwhat broke first?
- A mistake made in front of a customer
- What the last workplace did badly
- When latewhat happened and what you did
- Most tiring part of service work
- How you would say you cannot come in
- Walk me through how you got to your last job, and what time you left home.
- Tell me about the last time you were late. What happened, and what did you do?
- Describe a shift that went wrong. What did you do first?
- Tell me about a time you disagreed with a manager. How did you handle it?
- Tell me about a time you had more tasks than time. How did you decide what came first?
- Tell me about the last shift you could not make. How much notice did the shop get, and who did you tell?
That last question is the one most interviewers skip. It shows whether communication comes early or at the last minute, which decides whether a gap can be covered.
The paid trial shift: four things to watch
An interview measures how somebody talks. A trial shift measures how somebody works while three tickets wait.
Run it properly: pay for it, schedule it at the hour you actually need, tell them what you will be watching for, and give them a real task rather than observation. Then look at four things.
What to Watch on a Trial Shift
- Do they ask when they do not know?
- Do they clean as they go?
- What happens to pace when a queue forms?
- Do they check back without prompting?
The paid trial shift
- Do they work in order, or start three tasks and finish none?
- Do they change pace when the queue builds, without being told?
- Do they ask before guessing on a task they have not done?
- Do they tell the person taking over what is low, what is out, and what is unfinished?
None of those are about coffee either. All of them are trainable to some degree, and all of them predict how the next three months will go.
What the job actually is
Write the job description from the work rather than from an ideal. The Bureau of Labor Statistics profile of food and beverage serving and related workers sets out the duties, the variable schedules and the physical demands, including standing and lifting. If your menu includes assembled food, the profile of food preparation workers covers that side.
A description that matches the work attracts people who stay. One that flatters it produces early departures, and every early departure restarts a ramp you paid for.
References worth making
Two calls, both short.
Two Reference Calls Worth Making
- Call onedid they turn up on time?
- Call onedid they give notice when not?
- Call twowould you have them back?
- Note the pause before the answer
- Did they turn up on time, and did they give notice when they could not?
- Would you have them back?
That is the entire question, and it is answerable even by employers who are cautious about saying more. The pause before the answer is often the answer.
Safety and young workers, before the first shift
OSHA's material on young worker safety in restaurants covers the hazards of serving work: hot liquids, slips, cuts and lifting. Build the induction from it and deliver it before anyone works a busy shift.
If you are hiring anyone under eighteen, separate rules apply to hours and equipment, and they differ between federal and state law.
Federal law sets the floor. Fourteen is the minimum age for most non-agricultural work. m. m. The cap is three hours on a school day and eighteen hours in a school week. Sixteen and seventeen year olds have no federal hour limits in this work, but federal rules bar them from listed hazardous equipment.
On tips, federal law allows a cash wage below the minimum for tipped workers, $2.13 an hour, provided tips bring the total to the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour. Many states set a higher floor and stricter hour limits.
Ask your state labor agency and the US Department of Labor before scheduling the first shift. The same applies to any tip arrangement: take professional advice rather than copying another shop.
Where a food handling certificate is required, record it with its expiry in the register of permissions the shop keeps, because it usually attaches to the person rather than to the business.
After the offer
The first week decides retention more than the interview did. Have the schedule, the standard and the trainer arranged before the start date, not on the morning.
The program is set out in how a shop trains its bar staff, and paid practice hours belong in the labor budget from the start.
Two things follow. Someone must be shown receiving and counting, part of how the shop holds and rotates stock. Someone must learn how the shop talks to regulars, part of how a shop builds a base of repeat customers.
If a second site is in the plan, hire the manager long before you need one. A shop that opens without a trained manager runs on the owner, and that is not a plan, as what a second location actually demands makes clear.
Common questions
Should I hire for attitude or experience?
For an early shift, hire for reliability and train the rest. Experience shortens the ramp and does not predict whether somebody arrives at six.
Is a working interview legal?
Trial shifts have to be paid and handled correctly, and the rules differ by state. Ask your state labor agency before running one, and pay for the time.
How many people should I interview?
Enough to have a real comparison, and few enough that you can run a paid trial with the shortlist. One trial teaches you more than four interviews.
