Systems That Work

Hey y’all, been awhile. We are now 2! Seeing more than twice the traffic of one year ago and with triple the staff, which is logistically nuts. We needed systems! I’m mysteriously caught up today, probably because of those systems. I’m drinking some drip coffee and listening to the album “Doofus Casanova” by Smushie. It’s kind of a silly folk pop album. Let’s write!

I want to talk about how being twice as busy has affected our systems, and how I’ve had to create, destroy, and create again around that. Some of what I use, I see plenty of cafes still not using. I’m sure that’s driving someone there crazy. I hope that new cafes or any managers currently struggling to establish systems find this helpful. Lately I’ve been described as “organized” which I mostly disagree with, but I’m making some progress.

So I’m going to just choose a few systems that we’re now using regularly, and show what they looked like 1 year ago vs today.

Inventory

1 year ago my system was embarrassing. I would pretty much just look around and see what we needed at the end of the day, then go shopping once or twice a week. Maybe I’d take notes on my phone. Our menu was so small, that we could get everything perishable at Aldi. I’d grab milk, almond milk, skim milk, maybe some cinnnamon. I’d buy stuff like napkins at the dollar store if we ran out. It was so low stakes.

When we introduced a much larger menu last August, we had to shop for a lot more and at more places. Pretty quickly I was shopping like three times a week and it took all night. I had no time! I said “I’m going to start shopping one time a week.” Which was honestly hard! My shopping cost more, so I couldn’t just use what I had on hand. I had no system, so I’d always forget something.

My first solution was to print out some excel charts and make a paper shopping list. Then I’d make a stack of those templates, put them on a clip-board, and write on those. This did not solve the issue, because I’d just forget the paper or lose it. It’d be stuffed in my pockets or bags or back at the cafe. I’d just get frustrated and stop using it, and the cycle continued.

My next solution was a digital template, that I’d fill out on the iPad we use as a register at the cafe, and then send to my phone. This was semi-functional, but I’d sometimes forget to send it to myself after filling it out, or just misunderstand what was on the archaic sheet I’d created, and trying to navigate an excel on my phone that was made to be read on an iPad was still making me forget items at the store.

Today I was talking to Mike, a regular who coincidentally, designed an inventory system for another coffee shop once. He had the digital excel and showed me what it looked like. It was a long vertical column, which could easily be filtered based on if items had a value. Meaning, you could make it just show you what needed to be ordered and from where. The long column also meant that you could easily read and scroll through it on a phone.

I kept using our first system because I didn’t have a spare 2 hours, because it sort of worked, but I never forgot what he showed me.

So a couple of months ago I re-organized it all vertically to show the item location, name, how much we have, how much we should have (par), and how much we need to order, followed by the store it should be ordered at. Here’s a snippit of what that looks like filled out.

(ps. organize this list so that you can walk around the store without doubling back (in Anthony Bourdain’s book kitchen confidential, he harped on this point enough for me to do it, and it’s life changing.))

In The Future I’d like to include the price of each of these items and when it was last priced. I’d love to make this shopping list then have an estimated cost for it all. Right now I’m going to our bank statements to gather the cogs for each week in retrospect. I have a price list I just need to move it here too. Otherwise it works pretty well!

Daily Par Sheet

1 year ago I was not keeping a par sheet, this was pretty easy to ignore because I made everything and the only things I made regularly were iced tea, oat milk, and vanilla syrup. Our recipe book has always been on the iPad we use as a register, and it essentially had some spark notes on how to make stuff. This was pretty needlessly stressful, because if I ever needed someone else to make a recipe, I knew they had the guide but not if they had made it before or if the guide was sufficient. At this time I was staffing only during peak hours (I was also there), with a once in a blue moon solo employee shift. If I was sick and someone else needed to make oat milk, it was an unknown.

Today our iPad has a digital document for batch recipes, seasonal recipes, and expiration dates. They’re more fleshed out, and when employees use them they’re able to give feedback or make edits themselves (there’s also a master copy that is un-editable).

We make a lot more now. We cut lemons, make cereal, and sticker cups. We’ve got a laminated fillable excel sheet on a clipboard that we use at the end of peak hours during shift change. This lets us know what needs to be made the rest of the day, and if anything needs to be made urgently or “NOW.” If someone needs to stay 15 minutes late so we’re not out of a crucial ingredient, we can account for that. No more guessing. Here’s a snippet of that sheet.

In The Future I’d expect this to keep growing. As we get busier, tasks that seemed simple become more complicated. Right now we crush a box of vanilla wafers every couple of days, and that takes a few minutes. If we double that, suddenly it takes ten and we can’t do it between orders. This has been such a game changer that keeps people on task, its a crucial part of the operation.

Cleaning list

1 year ago the cafe basically never got dirty, so cleaning it was pretty easy. Everything was new and perfect, we had a very minimal space. So to repeat myself here, I kind of just looked around either during the day or after close, and cleaned up. I remember my friend Mario who managed another cafe told me they’d use scrubbing bubbles to clean their milk fridge once a week. I had no idea why, that sounded ridiculous. Now, I understand.

I think having no standards really hurt us, even if it was usually easy. If we had really messy day or a single really serious cleaning task come up, the pressure was fully on the person who closed in that moment, with no understanding that it would be taken care of by someone else later if they didn’t have time. That the team had their back. I was out of town for a day with an employee closing who had been with us for two months. She left a huge mess, and basically quit without a word. I found it hard to believe it was that messy, but in retrospect she hadn’t ever had to clean anything. If she had an understanding of what was expected of her it may have been different.

Today We make a big mess most days haha. There are some core tasks that need to be done in order to keep the place looking nice, and we write them down. in the book "The Restaurant Prosperity Formula”, David Scott says to walk around the shop inside and out, and take note of everything you wish was cleaner, then write down how to clean it and make your manager get a signature from people for cleaning it well.

Our laminated clipboard has a pretty simple description, and I show people rather than make them read a document but it’s a good sentiment. We have regular cleaning and recurring prep tasks on the same list, color coded as start of day (red), end of day (blue), and anytime (white). The purpose is to have employees checking that these tasks are done everyday or sometime during the week so that we keep the place clean. Here’s what that looks like.

In The Future I’d like to make a companion sheet for a better description of each cleaning task, and get all of the above compiled in to a physical binder to reference. A huge part of this system thing is making sure people actually use them. So they need to be in plain sight, usable, and simple. That, or you need to be so dedicated to enforcing them that they get done. I’d save yourself some trouble there if possible.

Honorable Mentions

Personally I keep two small books on hand at all times, in a sling bag with my wallet and keys. A $1 muji sketch pad, and a $25 leuchtturm1917 calendar notebook. I use the sketch pad for just about anything be it design work or rough future menu item costing out. I use the notebook to plan out my week and set some goals. I have a planning day on Monday my “day off” and I follow up on my notes on Friday before the weekend. I try to spend 5 hours a week on this. I also use a notion calendar on my phone/laptop to track all my bills each month and if they’ve been paid. I like notion because you can take notes all over each cell.

I like slack, I hear basecamp is better. Basically a group messaging app that you can share just about any file type in and access from anywhere. People can talk individually or as a group without giving out their personal information to each other.

We have an opening and closing list to reference for new employees. We have a general knowledge checklist we make new employees hold on to until they feel confident in checking everything off. We have a doc explaining the positions on bar and what they should try to own. Etc Etc.

as you encounter problems it’s nice to make systems, and systems change over time to better fit their circumstances. IF THEY EXIST!

START SOMEWHERE! OWN IT! YOU’RE THE BEST! SEE YA! - Elias