Re: what is the ideal barista wage and benefits and what can the public/employers expect with that?

What’s current with minimum wage? As of July 24, 2009, the federal minimum wage increased to $7.25 per hour and I’m sure that’s what the starting pay is for a barista in most places where that is the minimum.  In California, it is $8.00 per hour.  In San Francisco, it is currently $9.79.

I have only ever worked in California, and my work in coffee has been limited to the Bay Area, so it’s unfair for me to speculate what’s going on in other parts of the country (maybe Seth Lester could weigh in).  But I think it’s fairly accurate to say that in the Bay Area, the starting hourly wage for a barista ranges from the minimum up to about $12-$13 (maybe add a couple bucks for a ridiculous amount of experience? Maybe not?).  That’s about $3 higher than the minimum wage in San Francisco.

As for benefits, the best I have received included full medical and dental, and something pretty good for vision.  Pre-tax commuter benefits were available.  Sick time was just discontinued at the time (I was working in Berkeley), but in San Francisco, the law is that businesses must provide one hour of paid sick time for every 30 hours worked (before all the wording gets kinda shady).  Anyhow, I was provided something like 96 hours of vacation time that was accrued incrementally based on hours worked.  There might have been some other benefits too that I wasn’t aware of, like 401K.  I thought those benefits were pretty sick (pun?).

Realistically, though, I think those are the best benefits available to a barista, but unfortunately they came from a corporation.  Smaller specialty roasters usually offer a similar competitive plan, but maybe lacking in vacation or a certain percentage of medical coverage.  But that’s all cool, because they’re usually working to improve things.

Working for a corporation versus a specialty roaster or smaller cafe carry different sets of expectations for a barista.  So, assessing the correlation between pay/benefits and public/employer expectations has to be broken down that way.  We’ll forget about the large corporation and small cafe, and focus on the independent specialty roaster.

A barista needs to be highly skilled as a coffee professional as well as a hospitality professional.

• As a coffee professional, the barista should have extensive knowledge of all the beans, including (but not limited to) families/coops, farm, farming and processing methods, harvest dates, and varietals.  They should also be able to discuss the flavors, aromas, body, etc., of all the coffees.
• The barista should be experienced with all methods of manual brewing, as well as able to describe the differences between each method with respect to the brew.
• The barista should be able operate and maintain espresso machines and grinders (jeez, do I really need to go into detail on this one?).  The barista must also be able to quickly dial in coffee on various espresso machines and grinders.

And then there’s a bunch of other coffee stuff that I’ll leave for someone less lazy than myself to bullet-point.

As far as a hospitality professional goes, I don’t even know if I know the meaning of that.  I am far from one.  I wish I were more of one, and am constantly learning, but someone else would be better to go over this side of being a barista (thinking about it now, maybe it’s about time a pick up a new book).  But just for kicks and the sake of it:

• A barista needs to be able to identify the needs of the customer, and serve those needs to the best of their ability with authenticity.
• A barista should be good natured towards others and self motivated.

That’s all that I can put into words, unfortunately, on that subject (until I find a good book to read about it!).

As far as benefits for these services go, I think that the full benefits package that I stated earlier, including sick time, vacation time, and full medical is completely appropriate (this is, by the way, ignoring its feasibility).  Usually, these benefits kick in after a 90 day period, which I think is also appropriate.

This is all assuming a training program is in place to build the skills of the barista to where they need to be.  The training program should be designed so that it extends over the course of 6 months to a year.  The first 3 months should be spent largely on hospitality and the bean.  After that point, the barista should be competent enough to work with customers.

Barista reviews should be provided on a quarterly basis, assessing their performance and direction.  Raises should be granted biannually, if reviews go well.  If the review does not go well, that barista should be awarded a raise at the next quarter if the next review is better.  After the first year, a plan should be worked out so that the barista can work towards a goal, probably some sort of position involving increased responsibility, whether it’s training, production, wholesale, or what have you.  If a new position is achieved, a raise should be granted.

I think bonuses are a good idea too.  Once a year, or when a new position is achieved would be timely.

Starting pay for a barista should be $13 in the Bay Area for this type of company with this type of program (you can factor that down regionally based on cost of living).  Pay increases through the first year should $1 each, totaling $15 after one year of work.  From there on, raises should be based on a fraction of their wage.

That’s all I’ve got for now.  And I ain’t complainin’.

Camp Pull-A-Shot: Preliminary Recap

I want to get some thoughts out there while this is all still fresh in my mind.  It’s half past midnight, I’m pretty exhausted, and I’ve got a busy day tomorrow, but this was an experience that I don’t want to soon forget.

At 27, I think I’ve done some pretty cool shit.  Most of the big ones involved traveling and meeting awesome people.  I get along with people pretty well and get stoked on the slightest conversations, so all it takes for overwhelming memories might just be a little bit of travel where I surround myself with righteous folks.  Examples include, but are not limited to, touring the country in a punk band, partying in a foreign country, or just going on a fishing trip with my dad.  But here’s the kicker with this recent BGA camp: I’m a pretty big geek about coffee and have never had anything remotely close to hanging out with so many incredible like-minded folks.  Seriously, over 110 baristas from all corners of the country (and Canada with Piccolo.com), plus several wonderful and inspiring speakers I only ever hoped to have met in my lifetime, all in one radical place was enough to shatter my world into a million pieces in all the best ways.

I had the “super-awesome” opportunity of riding back to LA after camp with Jaymie Lao and Keith Mrotek, and I can honestly say, I couldn’t have imagined a more perfect ending to the unbelievable 4 days.  As everyone who attended the camp, I would assume, knows, as well as several others who did not, Keith suffered a major injury to his spine in a motorcycle accident only 10 days prior to camp that only about 3% of similar cases ever walk away from.  He was rocking a halo bolted to his dome that secured his neck in one place.  And the dude killed it.  He pulled shots and poured drinks with best of us.  It’s likely that if there had been a latte art competition, he’d have won it.  The longer I think about it, I really don’t think that anything was more inspiring than him.

And then there was Jaymie.  Jaymie warmed my heart.  She’s the type who’s really easy to talk to, and maybe it’s me, but I think we fed off of each other.  We bounced ideas back and forth and seemed to keep endless conversations rolling.  She’s really caring, like a middle child in an adoring family.  I wanted to be friends with her forever as soon as we met.

So it was rad when Jaymie was down to drive me back to LA with her and stop in at some cafes.  And even radder when Keith decided to jump in on the action with us.  And Sandy Bledsoe too!

We followed the good folks from Cartel Coffee Lab down to The French Press to see Joel and Michael in action down in Santa Barbara.  The cafe was gorgeous and I had a really good shot of Verve’s Sermon.  It seemed like they have a ton of happy regulars which is something that always makes me glad to see.  It was a great feeling being there.  I would have loved to stay all day, but Sandy (as well as eventually myself and Keith) had a flight to catch, so well said goodbye to The French Press, and after some pizza, headed to the Santa Barbara airport to drop off Sandy.  We’d meet the Arizona folks in Silver Lake from there.

As we made way southbound, we got talking about some of the great memories we had.  For me, most of them revolved around the conversations I shared with others.  I had so many incredible talks, but some of them rose profound issues as far-ranging as subjectivity, community outreach, self-abuse, and equality for women, amongst many others.  I hope to elaborate on these issues at some point, but for the sake of brevity, I’ll stick to the rest of our little trip through LA.

We made it to Silver Lake before the evening and went straight to Intelligentsia.  I’d never been there and walking in was kind of a trip.  Every now and then I’ll hear someone refer to baristas as daytime bartenders, so it was kind of remarkable to me how much the bar there resembled a bar, but for coffee.  If that makes any sense.  Anyway, we all had some coffee and took off after taking it in.  We stopped into the little mixology store next door to the cafe to stare at things that we wish we had in our houses before parting ways with the Arizonians and heading out to Venice.

As we were driving through Los Angeles, we talked more about coffee mostly (as if anyone thought we’d ever stop).  Not so much about the stuff, or technique or anything, but about our experiences and such.  And as we drove, I kept getting nostalgic about the times I’ve spent in LA in the past, and about the camp we had all just come from.  Plus, the thought of having passed the level 2 exam would pass through my mind here and there and overwhelm me.  It felt great.  It felt like coming down off of some really awesome psychedelic drug trip.

We arrived at the Intelligentsia in Venice right around sunset and entered through the front.  Keith was really excited to see Charles and got super stoked when he saw Nicely’s bike outside.  I was stoked to see him stoked.  And then when we walked in, everyone seemed to be stoked.  Even if Keith didn’t look like he was wearing some science fiction costume and nothing had ever happened to him, I’m sure it wouldn’t have been much different.  After a minute or two, Charles and Nicely introduced themselves to Jaymie and me and we ordered some drinks.  Charles realized I was @MaximumGrindage (those are always such funny moments) and we shot the shit for a bit.  The drinks we had were stellar, and I was pretty much mind blown for like the nth time in the past few days.  It was really kind of sad when we had to go because my flight was coming up pretty soon.  So, we exited through the back and took off for LAX.

To say I was sad to leave those guys does not explain it.  But really, I don’t know if I can.

My life rules.  I believe that statement.  Great things are always happening.  On a daily basis.  But there are these times that make me forget that and force me to live in the moment and do the best that I can at whatever I am doing at that moment.  The whole week had kind of been like that.  And then that moment came where I did my best to say goodbye to my new friends.  And then it was back to my everyday life, which, don’t get me wrong, totally rules, but…

There are tons of people I’d like to talk about and things that happened and experiences I shared, but it’s 10 to 3 now and I never get any sleep.  So, I’m gonna do myself a favor and leave this here for now.  Please feel free to comment if you feel like it.

Coffea Arabica at the Conservatory of Flowers

As soon as I can afford it (not nearly as soon as I’d like) I need to take a trip to origin.  Participating in a coffee harvest is a must for a guy like me.  There are certain questions about farming and processing that I won’t ever fully be able to explain, no matter the amount of reading or pictures, without a trip to coffee’s source.  It’s a bummer because I am awful at saving money for things like that.

So you can imagine my excitement when I saw two coffee trees at the Conservatory of Flowers in Golden Gate Park yesterday.

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I’ve seen a couple of trees before.  There is one at the Peet’s home office in Emeryville and Four Barrel has a little one.  But the two at the Conservatory are pretty sweet because of all the other plants that they’re around.  Even though it is just a generic tropical climate with plants from different continents, for a second you kind of feel like you’re in a place where coffee is grown.

We went yesterday to take advantage of the free day, which is the first Tuesday of every month.  The current exhibit, also free, is called “Chomp!” and is about carnivorous plants.  We watched a beetle almost fall into a pitcher plant and it was pretty exhilarating.  There are loads of orchids and carnivorous plants all throughout the place though, and it’s a really awesome place to be.

If you want to know more about how coffee is grown, there are tons of resources out there.  When I was first learning about different origins, I would (and still do) search the region on Google Earth.  There are lots of pictures that people have uploaded of coffee farms in there, and it’s pretty fun when you stumble on them.  Sometimes, you can guess that certain shapes are drying beds or milling stations.

A more reliable source for learning about stuff is Sweet Maria’s.  I learned a lot early on from them.  Tom has some nice Travelogues with great pictures.  And aside from that, there is lots of nice information on just about everything coffee related.  You might even end up home roasting.