3. Build a Culture of Taking Care of People
For me, "building a culture" boils down to being a group of professionals who are focused on taking care of the people who come in to our shop. Giving someone something to eat or drink is among the most intimate of human interactions we have. When an otherwise special moment of caring becomes transactional, it's up to us as the baristas to try to reclaim some of what's lost to commerce.
If we want to truly take care of people in this way through a coffee shop, it informs a list of priorities. If you care, the coffee had better be the best you can make. If you want the coffee to be the best you can make, you'd better really know what you're doing. If you want to know what you're doing, you'd better have or develop a never-ending thirst for knowledge about coffee and get out there and learn some stuff. Oh, and that also means you should have some quality equipment, too. And so on.
But at the core it's about everyone being there to take care of people. We need to start from a point of honoring the space that coffee occupies in people's lives. It's a taste experience, a daily ritual, a social engagement, and fuel for the day (or any combination of these). When you ask people why they drink coffee, more than anything else they tend to tell you a lot about how it makes them feel. That's a big responsibility!
So that's my two cents on the subject. If you've opened a coffee shop, what not-the-same-old advice might you share? Have you thought about opening a coffee shop? Looking forward to reading your thoughts in the comments!