When I started at Il Giornale, and later Starbucks, the drink menu was very simple. When we were trained on the bar, a cup with logo facing you was a latte, turned to the right was a cappuccino, turned to the left was a mocha, upside down cup was a double shot, etc. As we added more drinks, 2% milk and custom options to the menu only the most skilled baristas could keep track of the cups on the top of the La Marzocco. I often found myself behind the bar asking the customer, "And you are waiting for?" Or calling out what I had in queue and asking if anyone was missing a beverage. Ops Services was asked to solve the problem so new baristas could be more easily trained. So CUP ID was born. Those are the little boxes on the side of your cup that have become a signature of the Starbucks brand and the basis of the drink calling methodology. While we all appreciate it now, when rolling it out in 1994, using the boxes was considered an affront to skilled baristas and we were told we were ruining the hand crafted culture of Starbucks. Now it is hard to imagine a Starbucks Cup without the boxes.
I would like to give a shout out to Kathie Lindemann, Erika Brooks, Dan Moore, Margie Giuntini - the brave souls who helped create the system and lead its roll out as the early Ops Services pioneers.
Christine Day
I still have ingrained in my mind the coffee and syrup skus. 221 - 2 lbs of Kenya, a "5" was half-pound, a "6", 1-pound. Creating guides for coffee skus by the register which then turned into someone creating a plexi, tabbed holder for all kinds of skus. Running X and Z tapes every night and always saying a prayer that there was enough tape in the Datachecker. Developing the ability to take that small bread pan scoop and pull a 1/2 pound of coffee in one shot on the scale. Rolling the bag the right way... applying the stamp (not sticker) exactly a 1/2 inch above the logo. Being a test store for ALS... Filling in for store managers in Canada because of the 13 stores trying to unionize and needing to be ready if they decide to strike. Using the Hummel Cup weekly. Adjusting the bypass. Experiencing first hand a La Marzocca pressure relief valve failure, which would fail in the open position and turn the store into the Amazon Rain Forest. Having Sharon (Christine Day's sister) run all of my initial training classes. Having Behar on day 2, teach me "Just say yes" directly and in his kindly way. Still being able to identify Sulawesi by eye, Sanani by taste, Espresso, Italian and French by color, and the ratio of House and French for Viennese Blend when you ran out. Still remember customers drinks from long past. Feeling the unease of someone at the merch wall needing to be greeted within 30 seconds... which manifests itself as ADD whenever I feel the presence of someone walking past a conference room I'm in. Remembering the growth of Manager Conferences... from hundreds to thousands. Much like a coffee bean and its surroundings, these influences have shaped my current and much matured personality and philosophy about Loving what you do and sharing it with others.
I worked in Chicago from 1990-1994 so recall the cup system. If you could get behind a 4-group La Mazarco on Saturday morning and get through it without boxes, it was hard not to feel superior to those who needed them🙄. However, I do admit to marking the cups with a dry erase or pen or simply asking "What are you waiting on? when the need arose. I also remember the butterflies in my stomach before I found my comfort level on the bar!
Remember 'upgrading' the labor system from DOS based scheduling to ALS (windows based). It was a HUGE change for store managers and one that wasn't welcomed with open arms. We all had to go to day long trainings in other stores and learn how to use the system , which essentially went from us handwriting a schedule to us inputting data into the system and it 'building' us a schedule and then us just editing the entire thing back to the schedule we would have created because we knew far more than the black box ALS system. Eventually I went from SM to Barista (after having my first kiddo) to the Corp office to fix ALS problems for stores. While some things we found were technical problems (incorrect data about the store in the system) most of my day was spent problem solving and coaching SM's how to use the system to help them manage productivity and ease their work load. Much to my surprise - that experience led me to my future in Lean/Continuous Improvement, leadership and problem solving coaching. So...I am thankful for ALS - most people aren't likely to say that!
Love this... HB is still doing this work!
Christmas Deliveries
in 1987-88, we only had our own trucks to deliver to our stores. We did use UPS to deliver to accounts and a small e-commerce business. During the Christmas season, the order volume would go up dramatically and it was hard for the packaging line to keep up. The 10 days before Christmas were the busiest. During this period, Dave Seymore would stand by the exit door of the warehouse/offices. He had piles of boxes in stacks marked North, South, East and West. He knew were everyone in the office lived. As you exited the door, Dave would figure out which store or restaurant you lived near and he would assign you several boxes from the pile that you were to deliver on your way home. I lived South, so I got all the boxes for the Federal Way store, Salty's and Anthony's Home Port restaurants.
It was also stressful to get all the packages ready for UPS pickup at 4:00. The team would deploy all kinds of creative tactics to give the packaging line more time. Dave would park a delivery truck in the driveway so the UPS driver would skip us and circle back after his next stop. It was the last shipping day to make Christmas, and it did not look like all the orders were going to make it onto the UPS truck. Howard Behar was passing through the production area and heard the team talking about it in a resigned way. HB refused to let that happen. So he came upstairs and rallied everyone upstairs to join the packaging line. About 20 of us hit the floor (there were about 45 people in the office then) and jumped in to help. We only had about an hour to get the packages done, but we made it. Everyone was hooting and hollering when the last package cleared the line. We ordered pizza for everyone to celebrate. HB, as always, was teaching us that the power of leading often comes down to the act of serving. Being close to your front lines and listening for what is needed. in 1989, we moved to the new SRP on Airport Way and the infrastructure had grown to accommodate the peak deliveries and we had signed a new contract with UPS and Service Paper to deliver to the stores (thanks to FlavourLock - which is another story).
Ditto the shout out on how drink ID came !