Free checklist
Barista Training Checklist
The checklist (5 items)
Written as observable actions, so two trainers scoring the same shift land in the same place. In CrewSharp this is the Espresso Bar station in the Café / Coffee shop starter set, filed under Bar, and every item here is editable.
- 1Pulled shots within the target time and volume
- 2Steamed and textured milk correctly
- 3Made each drink to recipeMust pass
- 4Kept pace during the rush
- 5Kept the bar clean and stocked
Print it, score it on a clipboard, or open it in Sheets. No email required.
What usually goes wrong
Milk texture is where most baristas stall, because it is the one item that cannot be learned from a written standard. It needs a trainer standing next to them saying what to listen for, which is why this station rarely trains well on a busy shift.
When to sign someone off
A workable bar for this station: no critical items missed, a score above a line you set for Espresso Bar specifically rather than one number for the whole building, and observed on more than one shift with at least one of them busy. Then date it, so it can expire.
That last part is the one people skip. A sign-off with no date cannot be re-checked, which means a year later you have a record that says somebody was ready once.
Stations that pair with this one
These are the stations someone on this one most often covers alongside it, which makes them the sensible second checklist to train.
Common questions
How long does barista training take?
Pulling and building drinks to recipe comes quickly. Doing it consistently while a queue builds takes considerably longer, and that gap is the reason a sign-off based only on quiet-period observation tends not to hold on a Saturday.
What should be on a barista checklist?
The 5 items above cover it: pulled shots within the target time and volume, steamed and textured milk correctly, made each drink to recipe, and the rest of the list. Keep it in that range. Fewer and a pass proves very little; many more and trainers stop finishing it during a real shift.
Does this station need critical items?
Not every station has one. Where nothing on the list carries a safety or legal consequence, a passing score plus observation across more than one shift is a reasonable bar on its own. Marking items critical when they are not just makes the flag mean less everywhere else.
Scoring it is the part that lasts
Run this Espresso Bar checklist on a tablet between rushes and CrewSharp keeps the rest: who is signed off, when it was last checked, and which item your crew misses most.
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