Coffee shops are undoubtedly a cornerstone of University life, humming with the buzz of students looking for a caffeine fix. When students walk in to place their orders, it is not uncommon to see friends or classmates behind the café counter. These baristas certainly have their challenges, from long shifts to hectic rush periods, but they also experience a unique workplace community and gain valuable professional skills on the job.
While it only takes a few minutes to serve a standard latte, it can take weeks to learn the ropes and become comfortable with every aspect of the operation. Learning the nuances of different drinks, managing the register and more is a process that second-year Engineering student Yussef Ali has down to a science. However, it did not start out that way when Ali joined Grit at Nau Hall the October of their first year.
“Making coffee is a specific kind of skill,” Ali said. “It's not very complicated … but [there] are specialized machines. So in order to learn how to use them and get good at them, it takes a fair bit of practice. I didn't become a good barista until January.”
On top of mastering technical skills, baristas must learn time management, team collaboration and customer service, all essential ingredients for a successful shift. For example, Ali explained that to efficiently handle all of the drink orders at Grit, each team member has a station they are responsible for — such as manning the register, brewing espresso or steaming milk — and everyone works in a sequential order to make a drink from start to finish.
However, the operation is not always foolproof. It’s a difficult process, and making mistakes with orders from time to time is natural, Ali said.
“I’ve messed up orders before … in our structure, one person does syrups while another person does spices at the end,” Ali said. “So if one thing doesn't get added earlier in the process, just because of the sheer quantity of [what] we're doing, things are bound to get missed. If people notice … that's fine, we just put it [back] in.”
Being a student and a barista can be strenuous, staffing long shifts, managing rigorous coursework and attending extracurricular meetings all in the course a day. That is not to mention the demands of the job itself. At the Nau Hall Grit, for instance, the University’s Grubhub interface for ordering meals with U.Va. Dine makes for a stressful stream of work, as the online orders constantly come in alongside in-person orders. This rush gets especially intense during class changes — in these periods, Ali estimates they get about 40 orders in an hour, and their record is 75 orders in 30 minutes.
To manage the long hours and crazy order volume, a sense of camaraderie among everyone working a shift is critical. Graduate Arts & Sciences student Kiki McLaughlin started as a barista at Grit in Nau Hall in August, where she noticed how much it helped to have a good team surrounding her at work.
“I expected it to be a little unfeeling, because so much of it is online ordering, and so many drinks are being made at once,” McLaughlin said. “But [the] people make it a really good place to work and hang out — part of that [is] our managers, but a lot of it is the individual efforts by my coworkers … It's fun, and sometimes you have to embrace the chaos.”
Since the team at the Grit in Nau Hall is mostly composed of students, Ali believes that their shared experiences foster the cohesion of a good work environment.
“I think a lot of us are going through the same experiences when we're working together. We kind of bounce off each other and interact in a way [that] just feels familiar,” Ali said.
The public-facing nature of the job also keeps the energy up during a shift, as the baristas are able to see classmates, friends and professors who come in to grab their coffee — something McLaughlin really appreciates.
“Being a grad student, I'm not on Grounds as much,” McLaughlin said. “I don't live on Grounds anymore, which I did for quite a while. Part of the reason I'm working at this shop is because I want to see faces that I wouldn't see otherwise … it creates pathways to connection [and] conversation.”
Some students, on the other hand, enter barista jobs to learn transferable skills in leadership and business. Saxbys at Shannon Library, which opened its doors in the newly-renovated library last year, is completely run by students as part of the café’s experiential learning platform. Everyone, from the baristas to the Chief Operating Officer, are students.
Seeking a leadership opportunity on Grounds last January, second-year College student Bailey Carver applied to work at Saxbys. She started out as a team member, making non-coffee drinks like smoothies, before advancing to brewing coffee and preparing food. Having demonstrated a diligent work ethic on the Saxbys team, she became one of the two Student Chief Operations Officers, and now she is responsible for operating the café 20 hours a week.
Carver may have started out at Saxbys to become a student leader, but she has since found a close-knit community behind the counter, something that motivates her to keep working.
“I applied, mostly because Saxbys became a community and a family to me. We're all really close working together, but also, the leadership opportunity,” Carver said. “I don't think a lot of people can say in their second year that they've run a business.”
Having developed skills in community leadership, team development and financial management throughout the semester, Carver is glad that her managerial role has given her the opportunity to give back and support others who are starting out Saxbys.
“Not to be dramatic, but [Saxbys] saved me in a way,” Carver said. “I'm from a rural community, so coming from that to Charlottesville, the biggest city I've been in, it was hard to connect … I didn't have experience in my food service before, and [now] I'm running the whole café.”
Fourth-year College student Arianna Jobst has also been able to feel a sense of community working as a barista, staffing the Grit Coffee location on the Corner.
“With Grit, it's not just the people that I'm working with. It's the people who are regulars, people who are friends with the people that I'm working with and everyone [who] comes into Grit, even when they're not working,” Jobst said. “That community is not something that I was expecting out of a job, but why I've really fought to keep it.”
Similar to Jobst, Ali shared that the little interactions and small gestures are what really count during long shifts. In those moments, according to Ali, the baristas behind the counter feel appreciated for the work that they do and the effort it requires.
“The 15 to 20 seconds of, ‘Hi, how are you’ really does help us out, not only in terms of making sure we stay sane behind the bar, but it also gives us time to recuperate and think about what we're doing,” Ali said. “So, to everyone out there who enjoys coffee and sees the same people from time to time, let them know that you appreciate them, because it does go a long way.”
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