Free checklist
Barista Training Checklist
The checklist (13 items)
Written as observable actions, so two trainers scoring the same shift land in the same place. In CrewSharp this is the Espresso Bar checklist in the Café / Coffee shop starter set, filed under Bar, and every item here is editable.
- 1Dialled in the grinder at the start of the shift
- 2Dosed and tamped each shot evenly
- 3Pulled shots within the target time
- 4Dumped shots that ran outside the target time
- 5Steamed milk to the correct temperature
- 6Textured milk to suit the drink being made
- 7Purged and wiped the steam wand after every useCritical
- 8Built each drink to the recipe cardMust pass
- 9Made each customisation as written on the ticket
- 10Used a separate pitcher for non-dairy milkCritical
- 11Called out each drink with the customer's name
- 12Kept up with the ticket queue during the rush
- 13Kept the bar wiped and restocked between rushes
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What usually goes wrong
The two critical items are about the milk: a clean steam wand and a separate pitcher for non-dairy. Both are easy to drop in a rush, and the second one is an allergy problem the customer cannot see coming.
The items a good total should not outweigh
- Purged and wiped the steam wand after every use
- Used a separate pitcher for non-dairy milk
When to sign someone off
A workable bar for this checklist: 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.
Checklists that pair with this one
Someone trained on this one most often covers these 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 13 items above cover it: dialled in the grinder at the start of the shift, dosed and tamped each shot evenly, pulled shots within the target time, 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.
Which items should count as critical?
On this checklist, 2 items are marked critical: purged and wiped the steam wand after every use; used a separate pitcher for non-dairy milk. Missing one means not ready, regardless of the total score, because these are the failures that cannot be corrected after the fact.
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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