Teammates or Competitors?— The Way Specialty Coffee Shops Interact
Specialty Coffee can be described as a lot of things: a craft, a science, a war, life itself. Wait, what? Ok, Ok, “life itself” may...
Café Management
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September 23, 2026
As automation accelerates, does coffee need to invest more in baristas?
Estimated reading time: 8 minutes Key takeaways Automation should remove repetitive tasks, not the value of hospitality. Roasting and inventory automate fastest; guest connection still can't. Connection, teaching, and community building are skills machines can't replace. Owners' use of automation's savings decides whether baristas actually benefit. Automation has changed how the coffee industry works, from farm to café counter. Producers use machinery to cut manual labour, and roasters rely on… read more
Estimated reading time: 8 minutes Key takeaways Automation should remove repetitive tasks, not the value of hospitality. Roasting and inventory automate fastest; guest connection still can't. Connection, teaching, and community building are skills machines can't replace. Owners' use of automation's… read more
Coffee Festivals & Trade Shows: 9 Steps to Success
Are you exhibiting at a coffee festival or trade show? Or considering it? Exhibiting is a good business choice. It’s a straightforward, face-to-face way of...
5 Social Media Tips for Coffee Professionals
There’s a new café popping up on just about every street corner. This is great news for consumers – but for coffee shop owners, learning...
What Should You Do If a Customer Wants “Bad” Coffee?
It’s become cool to cop an attitude about certain drinks. You know what I’m talking about – the barista complaining about making too many single...
The Acaia Lunar: Trendy Toy or Serviceable Scales?
The Acaia Lunar has been the darling of coffee feeds, blogs, and the third wave at large since its release. But is it all hype,...
3 Rules to Building a Successful Brand via Social Media
We partly accredit Perfect Daily Grind’s unprecedented levels of growth to our deep expertise of social media and focus on engagement-driven content. As of October 2015, our audience has grown over 850%...
Shop Inconsistency: 4 Steps to Address The Problem
Let’s get straight to the point: inconsistency is a bad thing for cafés. Yes, you need good drinks. Yes, you need cool decor and good...
Social Media Marketing Magic with Acme and Co
Acme and Co. has over 40,000 followers on its instagram account. They’re not a photography studio. Or a creator of cat memes. Or even a...
The Quest to Find the World’s Best Food & Coffee Combination
Specialty coffee, check. Beautiful café, check. Good book, check. But wait—what about the food? If there’s anything that’ll have an effect on how your coffee...
4 Steps to Serving Seasonal Drinks in 3rd Wave Style
It’s that time of year again, when a certain coffee chain rolls out a particular drink for a limited time only. Devotees have waited for...
Service: The Missing Step in Serving Specialty Coffee?
Let’s take James Hoffman’s analogy and talk about burgers and service. (Don’t worry, you’re on the right site, and we’ll start talking about coffee soon.) Think...
Struggling To Make Money? Here Are 6 Ways to Maintain A Profitable Coffee Shop
Maybe you dream of one day owning your own specialty café. Maybe you already own a shop but are struggling to get out of the...
Avoid Losing Your Cafe: Protect Your Business in Under One Hour
It’s fair to say that, as Vice President of Commercial Insurance at the Insurance Office of America, I worry more than most. In fact, as...
Red Espresso: The Tea You Can Drink as Espresso?
The espresso: an emulsified, syrupy, all-encompassing marvel that forms the basis of nearly every drink served in a café—providing it’s a coffee. Rooibos: tea. Put...
5 Ways to Stand Out From the Specialty Coffee Shop Crowd
You’re not going to like me for this statement, but let’s take a step back and get real for a moment: all specialty cafés look...
Barista Careers: How to Make Drinks Recommendations
Making a recommendation is one of the hardest and most important things about being an excellent barista. We’re not just order takers. We’re order-creators, even...