Making Today’s Cashier into Tomorrow’s Barista
-- Chain Leader, 9/1/2007
Andrew Hetzel, president of coffee consultancy Cafemakers, believes that restaurant chains can learn to create knowledgeable coffee servers by borrowing ideas from specialty coffee chains. “But never use another company’s coffee training curriculum verbatim,” he warns.
“One may chuckle at the thought of Ruth’s Chris Steak House adopting Taco Bell’s food preparation training manual for its own use,” Hetzel says. “However, that’s the scale of error that we see with disturbing regularity in major operators’ coffee training programs.”
Best Practices
At New Orleans-based CC’s Coffee House, every employee who works in the coffeehouse is trained to serve in all roles. Not only can a cashier pitch in as a barista when necessary, but it can help career goals.
“We have found this works best for our operations, which must be very efficient with our payroll business metric,” says Danny Hebert, director of the CC’s Coffee House division of Community Coffee Company. “Besides that, it allows our team members to constantly be challenged and grow in their career. They don’t get bored doing the same job day in and day out. They rotate with other team members handling various tasks and assignments. Most of our team members are also in-store mentors and trainers.”
Beyond the Barista
Some of CC’s team members who started off in the coffeehouse division have even moved into various other roles throughout the company like sales, manufacturing, accounting and special projects.