Coffee & Espresso

Spice Up Your Coffee

Try these recipes that add a little spice and a warming, flavorful effect to your usual hot or iced coffee drinks. Your customers will love them!

Coffee and Tea Suppliers That Give Back

More than ever, consumers vote with their dollar—buying from businesses that support sustainability, fair labor practices, and environmental stewardship. This is particularly true for Millennials and Gen Zers, i.e. 20- and 30-somethings who enjoy hot and iced drinks very much, thank you.

Highlighted here are some of our coffee and tea partners that have made social and environmental responsibility part of their business models.

Cold Brew and Iced Coffee – Great Winter Drinks!

Cold brew coffee and iced coffee are the superstar summer drinks in coffeehouses around the world — but they don’t disappear in the winter. A Dunkin Donuts poll showed that 56% of folks believe it’s never too cold for an iced coffee. Maybe they just wear gloves?

Still, some are torn between the two brewing methods. Here we’ll break down the differences between cold brew and iced coffee.

Coffee Expert Guesses Cheap vs Expensive Coffee (Video)

In the Epicurious video series “Price Points,” coffee expert Dillon Edwards of Parlor Coffee tries to guess which of two coffees is more expensive, after examining, smelling and tasting them. He also provides a bit of insight into his methods for analyzing coffee, while also breaking down roasts (dark vs. light), and waxing poetic about processing, freshness, varietals and source.

Dial In Your Iced Coffee, Iced Tea and Smoothie Offerings For Summer Profitability

With summer approaching, your iced-drink sales may be about to take off. Iced coffee and tea, nitro coffees, blended-iced drinks (frappes) and smoothies are popular year round, and even more so as the weather heats up. You can expect your ice machine to start working overtime.

The Importance of Milk in Espresso Based Drinks—and The Science Behind It

At Intermix Beverage and at countless coffee shops across the country, particular attention is paid to the quality and flavor of the coffee that goes into our lattes, cappuccinos and other espresso drinks. But the milk in espresso based drinks is an equally vital component.

Airpot Selection and Maintenance

As ubiquitous as they are, airpots can confound coffee shop and restaurant staff. Whether you’re trying to select the right one or properly care for the one you have, this guide to using and maintaining the most common airpot designs will set you on the right path.

Training

Better Cleaning, Better Coffee

It’s not the most glamorous part of making good coffee, but the way you clean your equipment can have a serious effect on the taste and quality of the drinks you serve.

We often see irregular or DIY-style cleaning procedures result in unsanitary equipment or coffee that’s tainted with the taste of mineral residue or coffee oils. Cleaning procedures that don’t leave equipment sparkling clean can also shorten its lifespan, resulting in unnecessary repair and even replacements costs.

Coffee Shop Strategy 101: How to Run a Coffee Shop Profitably

Running a profitable coffee shop is an exercise in speed and efficiency. You need speed to keep your customer line moving, efficiency to manage inventory, and a little of both to handle hiccups like equipment repairs.

The faster you can do these things (and do them well), the more product you’ll sell in less time—and without overstaffing. With any luck, you’ll have time leftover for things like planning your next location and keeping up with specialty coffee trends. Maybe even traveling to origin!

Improve Your Syrup Strategy: Three Tips to Cut Costs

Syrup can be tricky. On one hand, you want to serve customers memorable, delicious drinks that bring them back again and again. On the other hand, you want your drinks to be profitable — and that means keeping ingredient costs, including syrup, under a reasonable threshold.

While balancing cost and quality is a perennial coffee shop problem, every cafe owner can cut syrup costs by applying precision management techniques to their purchase and use. Wondering how? Here are three practical strategies.

The “Coffee Plus” Strategy For Success at Your Café

A selection of menu items—and knowing how to sell them—are vital to your coffee shop’s success.

The rub at a retail coffee shop: your main product has great gross profit margins, but low overall ticket averages. Since you pay your rent in straight-up dollars—not as a percentage of your profit—bringing your average individual sale well above $3 or $5 is crucial to your success. Cafes with an only (or mostly) coffee strategy can be busy all day, but still not generate enough profit to keep their doors open.

To realize your dream of coffee retail success, you need a “coffee plus” strategy (coffee plus pastry or other food item). Coffee should be no more than 40 percent of your weekly sales—about two item sales per customer transaction.

Coffee Shop ROI: Making It Happen

There is no one set of secrets to making it in the foodservice business. Most success comes down to hard work, extensive experience or luck.

Tips For Building Your Staff

We recently brought you a few handy hiring tips, and ideas for reducing staff turnover. Then just the other day, we stumbled upon a few more ideas for building your staff that we think are worth adding to the pile. After all, hiring prowess cannot be understated in its value to your restaurant or café. It is nothing if not a fine art, and doing it right will save you loads of time, money and headaches:

Keeping Training Costs Down – Simple Tips

Want to know one of the biggest hidden challenges in running any coffee shop or restaurant? Keeping training costs down. Every day spent training means lost productivity or additional labor costs in the form of the trainer him/herself.