Coffee shop new hire training checklist

The full training path for a new café hire — register first, then espresso, then the bar, then a real rush.

• Shop orientation and the training path — Tour of the bar, register, prep area, and storage. The new hire leaves Day 1 knowing the layout, their trainer's name, and the path from register to solo bar.
• Food safety and hygiene basics — Hand washing, glove use where required, and basic food handler standards — demonstrated, not just acknowledged.
• Menu knowledge cheat sheet — What's actually in every drink on the menu — the cheat-sheet version. A new hire who can answer 'what's in a cortado' on Day 2 stops being scared of the menu.
• Register and order-taking — Order entry, modifiers, names on cups, and marking drinks correctly during a rush. Register comes first: it teaches the menu, the pace, and the customers with the lowest stakes.
• Calling drinks and the pastry case — The shop's calling convention so the bar hears orders the same way every time, plus pastry case handling and labeling.
• Batch brew to spec — Ratios, timers, hold times, and when a batch gets dumped. Batch coffee is half the volume in most cafés and the easiest quality win to train early.
• Espresso fundamentals — Dose, yield, and time — what each lever does and what sour versus bitter tells you. Grinder adjustments included. Signed off when shots are consistent, not when the explanation was understood.
• Milk steaming and alternatives — Stretching versus texturing, temperature targets by drink, and how each milk alternative behaves. Practiced until texture is right for lattes and cappuccinos without coaching.
• The core drink builds — Latte, cappuccino, americano, mocha — step by step, in the shop's spec. Pour quality matters; speed matters more during a rush, and the trainee learns when each rules.
• Bar shadow shift — A full shift on bar alongside the assigned trainer: sequencing multiple drinks, batching steams, keeping the bar clean mid-rush, and remakes without drama.
• Closing the bar — Backflushing, steam wand care, grinder cleaning, and the closing reset — completed independently to standard.
• Reverse shadow — the solo-readiness rush — The new hire runs a real 20-minute rush while the trainer watches and scores. Consistent drinks at pace is the bar for solo clearance — literally.
• Trainer sign-off and solo clearance — The trainer confirms every item was demonstrated, dated, and recorded. No sign-off, no solo bar shift.