Complete guide
Coffee Shop Management: The Operations Guide
The day-to-day of running a coffee shop is where margin is quietly won or lost: in the schedule, the ordering, the portioning, and the numbers you do or don't read each week. This guide pulls together the operational side of the business into one place.
Great coffee gets people in the door; operations decide whether you keep any money once they're there. Your schedule sets your labor and payroll percentage, your ordering and portioning set your waste, and your weekly read of the numbers, including your sales per hour, decides whether you catch problems early or late. Here's the operational playbook: dive into any piece below.
The schedule is your biggest lever
Labor is the largest cost you control, and your schedule is where you control it. Build it from your real demand, not from habit.
Staff Scheduling: Match Labor to Demand
Most shops schedule on habit and overpay for slow hours while scrambling through the rush. Build the schedule from your sales per hour and protect your margin. Read the full guide →
Labor Cost Percentage
What a healthy labor and payroll percentage looks like, and why reading it by daypart is where the real waste hides. Read the full guide →
Inventory and Waste
Milk spoilage, over-portioning, and expired pastries drain margin a little every day. How to get inventory and waste under control before they add up. Read the full guide →
The 7 Numbers to Check Every Week
The short weekly review that keeps operations honest: traffic, ticket, labor, mix, and the rest, read the same way every week. Read the full guide →
How to Read Your Square Sales Reports
Which Square reports actually matter for running the floor, and how to read your sales, items, and sales per hour in five minutes. Read the full guide →
Why Do Coffee Shops Fail?
Cafés rarely fail overnight. The operational warning signs that flag trouble early, while there's still time to fix it. Read the full guide →
Coffee Shop Running Costs
The full cost breakdown behind your operations, and which costs to watch weekly versus which are fixed. Read the full guide →
Run your shop on what the data shows
Second Manager reads your Square export every week and turns your operational numbers, labor by daypart, sales per hour, cost trends, into the questions a sharp manager would ask, so nothing important goes unread.
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See all our writing in the blog, or explore the finances guide and the growth guide. · How Second Manager works →