Customers come back for more than just a good coffee. The people delivering the service at your café are the face of everything you and your business value. The right team can nurture a welcoming environment and a healthy culture that customers want to come back to.
Recruiting the right people can be tedious and often happens when it’s least convenient. Many in our industry are pursuing other dreams while taking on casual work, making it even harder to find passionate, compatible staff. Still, it’s essential to find personalities that match your café’s vibe, embody your values, and have a genuine passion for hospitality.
In my 15 years in the industry, I’ve learned a lot about building teams—from thriving dynamics to toxic environments. I've learned from some wonderful people whose leadership advice I still value today. Here are five key tips (and suggested interview topics) to help you recruit the best people for your café.
1. Prioritize Personality
Think about your favourite café and the team members who deliver excellent service. What do you enjoy about their hospitality? Is it the jovial conversations, how you're greeted at the door, or that they know your regular order? Their distinguished personality lets you know they are passionate about making you feel welcome and cared for. Perhaps it's a quality recognised in the whole team?
Personality can be a hard thing to teach in a café. Yes, there are teachable communication skills that deliver a style of service. But the right personality gives your café's hospitality an edge with memorable interactions that leave good lasting impressions. Someone who can enjoy conversation, is expressive with their body language, and loves greeting customers as they enter the café is invaluable in a café team.
Interview Topics
Ask how the applicant would solve problems in social situations in a café environment. It could relate to managing customers during long wait times. Or how they confront particular personalities. Finding how the applicant communicates with others will tell you a lot about their personality. It's also wise to ask them to talk about themselves. Your valued customers will interact with this person all the time! Understanding how they talk about their own life and interests can give you insight into what your customers will experience. These topics will reveal healthy personality traits like their empathy and creativity.
2. Hire Local Talent to Build Community
Hiring from your local community can be a game-changer. Local staff add authenticity to your café and create a connection that resonates with customers. Whether serving regulars or tourists, a team member with a deep knowledge of the area can make your café feel uniquely rooted in the community.
Local talent doesn’t necessarily mean lifelong residents. It’s about finding someone who knows and appreciates the area, whether they’re new to town or grew up there.
Interview Topics
Discuss where the applicant has recently travelled. Encourage them to share what they loved about their experiences and what they’re excited to explore next. It doesn’t have to be overseas—something they’ve recently enjoyed in the local area is just as valuable. Even better, see if they can mention something about the community that you can bond over. The goal is to understand how familiar they are with the town and its people. A local perspective can bring authenticity and a sense of connection to your team.
3. Focus on Cultural Fit and Core Values
Any passionate café has a set of core values that it embodies through the product, its people and service. Every addition to the team needs to strengthen those values. Sure, you can hire someone skilled with coffee, familiar with your systems, and even friendly with your team. But if they don't resonate with the core values of your business, they can't help it grow.
Interview Topics
Share the core values of the business and examples of how the café embodies them everyday. Ask the applicant to share how they connect with these values and why they are meaningful to them. Their perspective on your core values will give you insight into whether they can contribute to the growth and culture of your business.
4. Cultivate a Strong Work Culture
The most reliable way to retain staff is by fostering a strong and healthy work culture. It's hard to talk about work culture without sounding like you’re pitching, but transparency is key. Be transparent about the current work culture so that you attract the right people for the job. This tip is effective only if you walk the talk! Make sure you have a clear understanding of your current work culture before presenting it. A healthy work culture goes beyond professional relationships—it includes opportunities for skill development, a constructive feedback system, shared team goals, and celebrating achievements together.
Interview Topics
Talking about work culture is an opportunity to be transparent with the applicant. Sharing details on what the work culture is like at your café helps the applicant understand the team they have applied to join. If you're looking for longer staff retention, consider developing an inviting work culture.
5. Value a Teachable Attitude Over Coffee Skills
Believe it or not, coffee skills don't need to be a priority when you’re hiring staff for your café. So much of what goes into whipping up a good espresso or knowing how to brew filter coffee comes with good training, practice, and a teachable mind. Finding someone who wants to constantly improve and learn is one of the healthiest investments you'll make. It's harder to teach an old dog new tricks, and the industry is ever-evolving. Not only that, but someone open to teaching can be a great asset too, because there is more to learn when you teach.
Having a team member who sees no future other than their own can only hold your team back from developing. Sure, it’s handy to find someone who knows how to brew coffee, but it can be challenging to keep them engaged in the long term. Meanwhile, someone eager to learn and grow gives you and your team opportunities to train and further develop your own skills.
Interview Topics
Discuss the education the applicant has or is currently studying. Maybe it's not higher education but instead some short courses. Discover how passionate they are about learning and ask what they enjoy about it. Ask about how they have taught or trained others and what they enjoyed about the process. Having an open-mind, adaptability and patience are signs of a teachable person.
It Just Takes a Good Chat
Some of the best workers I’ve recruited have been the result of a good conversation to truly get to know them. Some were completely new to the industry and have since developed valuable qualities that some veterans don’t bother learning. Others have discovered a passion for specialty coffee and now love attending public cuppings to explore what roasters have to offer.
Be thorough with your questions, but remember to present yourself as a person. Don’t run through a robotic list about latte art or coffee history—neither will nurture your business or team. There is so much you can learn about someone when you invite them to express themselves in an interview.
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