Having a part time barista job is one great opportunity if you are a person who love coffee or you simply want to earn money while you are studying. Most important thing that I want to share on this post is not about how to be a great barista but how you can run your coffee shop business no matter where you are.
Dear all my friends this is Bima and I’m a professional wedding photographer, thank you for finding me on Google by the way and I hope today I could share one great thing that could inspire you as well. If you ever read my previous story in this blog where I share about how I finally can run 3 hospitality properties just by saving my photographer fee you will know that no matter business that you working at right now than you must be open mind about future investment.
Back in 2013 when I open my first guest house, what I concern with is I want to serve my guests just like my family member. Even I know that most of my friend who belong to airbnb host don’t give their guest some breakfast event just toast bread and black coffee but I want to give them more than I receive. Day by day till I make hundred of sandwiches and glass of juices to all my guest than I wondering that someday I will be own a coffee shop where I could make a better coffee with a modern machine and work with talented barista.
I’m not a good barista but I want to learn more about this industry!
From a free room space inside my house than now I run 3 airbnb houses without buying any single property of them, so what I’m doing is asking my uncle and auntie who own a house which they not using. I encourage them to put trust on me to open an ordinary guest house and coffee shop while I will share the profit to them. In fact my family were so happy about this idea because most of them are totally retired from their primary job and only earn small money from their retirement plan.
Why I Consider on Barista Job?
I’m not a good barista but I want to learn more about this industry, I always believe that hospitality, tourism, food and beverages are great industry that will rock the world and the bonus….I could make a better living for my family and open so many job vacancies to all people around me.
What I’m doing here is open my coffee shop before the main operational hours and learn everything from the basic. My barista surely working better than me because they are faster and super talented so I’m asking them to teach me how to turn on the machine, how to calibrate the grinder, how to steam milk, and off course how to make a latte art.
Become a barista is about deliver services so it is related to my main job as a photographer. Taking my self in more further about services will push my self to achieve great satisfaction level that I can adapt to all my business. I was remember when someone want to buy one of the menu and I just really worry about it because it is the first day where I open my coffee shop without any single help from my “real” barista staff, but finally I could serve a god drinks to them.
I know, it’s all about practice!
As same as how I learn to shoot with off-camera flash technique, I must doing more and more practice before I shoot my real couple. So having a part time barista job in my own cafe is about learning more further in this industry.
I know that I’m seriously newbie person in this industry but when I become a boss and don’t know how my staff working, I just feel that my life is ain’t complete at all. I want to have a feeling how my staff working and know in person how difficult this job is and that’s why I push my self to learn something new that not related with photography but it is 100% related with services business.
As I said before, sometimes I feel nervous when I got my customer without any help from my barista staff, but this is part of life.
What Do I Do While Working on Part Time Barista Job?
It’s everything!
I open my cafe’s door than I sweep all the floor till I turn on my espresso machine and calibrate the grinder. I wash all the glasses, plates, and milk jug on the sink and put all the apparels on the serving board. When I run my part time barista job I seriously don’t want my staff to get involve with me because when they saw me sweep the floor and do all their job than they will stop me.
I want to get dirty and tired as what my barista had!
For me,
become a boss on my business is about working on my vision and starting earlier than all my staff. Who knows, maybe someday few of my staff also become a boss just like me and I surely happy for that. Few months ago just before the pandemic I signed my staff’s resign paper because he want to open a coffee shop at this hometown. I don’t ask anything about it and simply approve what he asking for and I’m so happy that one of my talented barista now own his own coffee shop, that is brilliant!
If you want to see the real life how I work on my part time barista job than I will show you with this short video below,
I know may be someone out there think negative about what I’m doing here but I’m kind of person that need to learn something new to get a better knowledge so no matter what they say or what they thinking than I don’t care.
Either I’m working as professional wedding photographer or start to learn how to work in a part time barista job than I will do everything with 100% energy. I put my passion on this services business and I don’t really care how much money that I could earn during this moment. My good friend told me that “someone who live with passion is just weird” but that’s now what I’m thinking at.
I work as a photographer because I have a passion about capturing moment, I love when see people laugh and hug each other during their glorious moment. Back 10 years ago I was an ordinary guy who don’t know how to sell my photography services even I don’t know exactly how to set my exposure, aperture, and ISO but now I traveling around the world and capturing the most romantic wedding moment in such wonderful venue like what I had in Bali, Jakarta, Singapore, Maldives, and Hong Kong.
And yes I’m telling you that,
I put passion on my job!
What’s the Connection Between Become a Wedding Photographer and a Barista
When I have a part time barista job, it seems to be I learn something new about client satisfaction. Generally it almost same with capturing moment, retouching my photographs and make a great layout on the wedding album than deliver it to my couple’s front door so for me become a barista is similar than become a photographer because both of this job is about delivering outstanding services to someone that pay for it.
What I believe in more further about photography industry than it’s not only how to shoot or set up your camera but it is about how you deliver hard work and determination on every single session that you have. In other side, when I work as a part time barista job than it’s not only about how I grind the beans and brew the coffee but it’s totally beyond that, it’s about how I give a smile when serving the cappuccino directly to my customer.
In fact I often to make a warm greeting to all my guest like asking where they are coming from, how they found my cafe and etc. I know they already pay $3 for my cappuccino and I already serve them for what they asking for but here I want to deliver more services like smile or sway my hand when they leave my cafe.
It’s about beyond services!
If you see my work on Denise and Joel than you will see so many beautiful photos that I deliver to my couple who came a cross my blog just like you a year before we going to Maldives for surprise engagement session. On that day I was getting a bad fever till I know that I got a chicken pox disease far away from home and I still have a photo session that I have to finish.
If you ever got a chicken pox than you will know that when you take a shower than you will feel really hurt on the whole but it doesn’t stop right there because here in my session I choose to not telling my couple that I’m sick but I put my snorkel on my face and dive into the sea water and you know what it’s like a lot of pain on the whole body. What I want is deliver outstanding photographs that my couple could get here in Maldives no matter how hurt my body is and how bad this fever is.
I was happy to see my couple is getting married now in Singapore and they have a cute boy as their first kid. What make me really happy is I could deliver the best effort that I could make for them, it’s not only about they pay me thousands of dollars for my collection but it’s beyond that and once again this how passion work so well on my business.
8 Things to be Concern Before Joining a Part Time Barista Job
One good news is, you don’t need to have a formal education before having a part time barista job so whenever you want to earn more cash while you are studying or you exactly want to be a full time barista than you can apply for the job immediately.
Even any of you are able to sign up both for full or part time barista job but there are few things that you need to be concern about, let me share you with some additional skill and knowledge based on my experience as coffee shop owner and part time barista in my own cafe.
1 – Customer Care
Your first thing that must be concern is about caring to your customer and one good example is when you have a new customer come to your cafe and it belongs to their first time so they don’t know what to order. For sure you will sell a cappuccino, latte, or classic espresso but sometimes customer also need a fusion or signature drinks that your cafe had.
My personal tips to solve this challenge is by handling your customer like your friend, go greet them and ask them some help if they don’t really know about what to order. Through this way conversation will begin and eye contact will be the most powerful care to all customer in any business.
2 – Knowledge
If you work have a part time barista job than basic knowledge about coffee is necessary and in a simple way you have to know about all the menus that your cafe had, what make them special and simple suggestion will help your customer as well. Become an ordinary is fine but if you could know something cool knowledge than it makes you into something, let me give you with an example.
I bundle my cafe with an Airbnb guest house which is located in a primary district of my town so I push all my barista to know a bit more about local tourism, ATM or Bank direction, how to go to the city centre and some local food suggestion that all common tourist must try. When you work in cafe which located in a downtown than you may have a good knowledge about where the nearest subway station or 7 eleven store nearby your cafe because your customer might be need that information too.
3 – Speed and Efficiency
I don’t really like to be rush but I seriously hate lazy person for sure. What I’m going to say is you don’t need to be worry and rush on your work but just do as fast as you can because you have to RESPECT your customer’s time. We all know that at this time, most of every coffee shop provide an automatic burr grinder and surely the espresso machine. This technology allow you to make a simple push button on your grinder and you will directly get fresh ground coffee for single or double shoot.
I personally operate a Mazzer grinder on my cafe where all the system works so fast and automatic so I definitely will get the fresh ground coffee with just few seconds.
4 – Good Teamwork
In an ordinary cafe use to have some staffs like barista, chef, store manager, and waiter so here you are not alone and will working as a team. It’s not that hard but as long as you have a good communication skill than everything that your cafe needs will be set in a good way.
Working as a barista need a good teamwork because you may work together with your partner who belong to the pastry chef or waiter in one single decision, to serve the best coffee in the world. Few cafes used to have a head barista who organize all the barista staff, so no matter you belong to the head barista or not than you must be able to work as a team.
5 – Awareness
Awareness is really taught skill but when you able to have it on your own than I sure that you are able to work on any services business in this planet. Become someone who keep aware of EVERYTHING will might be hard but this is how services business is going on. You have to be concern on every detail starting how you plot the seating are, how you placing all the cookies, and etc.
With a good awareness skill than you can not see any dust or waste of paper anymore because it belongs to cleanliness that every customer need. So if you found something like this than you can pick up that trash and put in on the bin.
6 – Salesmanship
There is no business will work well without great salesmanship because every business owner want to get high sales at the end of the month and this will keep the business run in a good profit. Running a part time barista job is not only making a fresh latte to your customers but you will need a basic expertise of selling something. Go push your self to sell more cookies, more topping, or more cakes that your cafe had because all of the customers will pay for some service fee which could be your additional income at the end of the month.
7 – Good Communication Skill
As I said on the paragraph above that you must be able to good in communication. Don’t be worry because you don’t need to graduate from communication bachelor degree but it is about how your common sense working. Let me share few essentials thing that you must know about having a good communication skill:
- Keep an eye contact to someone who talk with you
- Ears and mind open
- Keep smile
- Using a body gesture will be great
- Don’t cross your arm on the chest (it seems to be you don’t want to give some help)
In fact there are a lot of professional who aren’t able to communicate with someone else
It’s fine if you working as a person but I always believe that someone who have a good communication skill will take their career journey into the next level in fast. Especially in services and hospitality business, you gonna work and serve hundred of people in a day and all of them are need your expertise and help than there is no other skill to deliver your expertise without having a good communication skill.
Go read this book and do practice over and over again while you are working.
8 – Cash Management Skill
It’s common when a cafe offering a part time barista job than they asking you to be a cashier too at the same time, so here you must have a good multi tasking skill for any needs but don’t worry when you step your feet on the bar than everything will passed like an easy thing.
There are a lot of cashier machine type but once you accepted for running a part time barista job than you will get a well training on the cafe about operate this machine. My personal suggestion for running this multi tasking job is in one word,
Focus!
Go finish your task step by step like accepting the order and asking your customer either they want to add some cakes or cookies and once you get their confirmation to buy than you can move your focus on the cashier machine or tablet where you gonna calculate all the bill with the POS platform that you have.
3 Most Common Barista Job That You Will Do Before Opening the Cafe
The difference between full time and part time barista job is commonly based on hour that you working at but generally you will have the same things while you are working. Before I ended this article I want to let you preparing your self by knowing most common barista job that you will do once you working on a coffee shop.
1 – Set Everything Done
Once you entering the cafe than you must know that you will do everything that your cafe need before serving hundred of customer on that day. It gonna start by cleaning all parts like seating area, bar, machines, check the trash bin, put some flower on the vase, turn the music on, placing the tray, and etc.
One thing that you must be concern is about set everything done till you are ready to serve your customer once the operational hour begin. This task need your 5th things to be concern on the list above, it’s called awareness.
Double check the preparation and make sure you are ready to serve!
2 – Turn on All the Machines and Calibrate It
Espresso machine is one of the most important and also one of the most expensive coffee gears that your cafe had. Big machine with double or triple porta filter group like La Marzocco or Simonelli usually need around 15 to 20 minutes of stand by before it can be use for making an espresso. This means you have to turn on the machine and leave it for a while when you clean up your cafe or placing all the apparels on the table.
Calibration is checking all the system that your espresso machine and grinder have for preparing the coffee. For example, my espresso machine used to need 15 to 17 gram of fresh ground coffee for making double shots of espresso. It means you have to set your grinder to be able produce 15 to 17 grams by single click.
3 – Placing All the Apparels On the Right Spot
The last thing that you must do while having your own part time barista job is placing all the apparels on the right spot. You may have amount of glasses, coffee mugs, or even the wooden saucers that you use for serving the drinks. This apparels used to be a lot so it’s a perfect choice to turn on your espresso machine and leave it for a while where you can do any other job that you must do before the cafe is open.
When I open my home for Airbnb business than I only have plenty of terrace space for belong to a cafe, actually it is a small cafe which only can serve for 20 people in maximum. Even it’s quite small but this still become a good business where I can investing my photographer fee for my future income.
I know that you might be still a bit confuse about what to do for running a part time barista job so down here I will show you how I open my cafe without any single help from my barista so I do exactly the same thing with what my barista did.
I hope you enjoy for what I’m sharing in this post and have a good luck with your part time barista job, cheers! BA