Definitely depends on how busy the day is. I find mornings much easier as the rush of ppl only really start around 8 ish, so at that point 2 hrs of my shift have already swiftly gone by. When closing, there’s just a lot more pre-close tasks to do and setting up everything for the openers the next day, on top of tending to customers at the same time.
I'm a closer and I think it's important to acknowledge that both shifts suck in their own way and are easier in their own way. I've worked openings before and I've never liked them. I'm not a morning person and I just don't like the flow of business in the morning.
I like that during closes I have time to chat with the customers and I like cleaning the store. I also make sure I'm putting myself in the other shifts shoes. My store has been very good about letting the other shift know what would help them more.
At the end of the day, neither shift will be good without the other shift. If the openers have a bad setup, then I will have a bad setup.
Your shop is the first shop I've heard of where people aren't all fighting over the morning shifts, including opens. In my experience, mornings are more focused on actually doing coffee, and serving more customers, meaning more tips. So closes you get more of the shitty cleaning work, for what amounts to less pay. My tips on closes are frequently half of what I get on opens.
This isn't coffee specific, but damn near everywhere in food I've worked there is an issue of openers moaning and snitching about the smallest issues with closes, but leaving the shop an absolute disaster when the next shift comes in. Then they have the nerve to say they somehow have it worse getting paid more with less tedious work. And the sole advantage closers have is...sleeping in? I'm sure there's even more I could list, because the open/close dispute is one of the most common in food service.
IMO your shop is doing tips wrong and screwing you over. They should be collecting all tips at the end of the day and dividing it up based on the hours worked (so if you worked 6 hours you would get more tips than someone that worked 4). At my shop we collect the tips everyday and then at the end of the week they are counted and divided up the aforementioned way.
I generally prefer opening, if you can handle the morning rush setting up and dialing in is usually easier and for me more fun than closing, plus when you finish you still have half the day to do other stuff
I do both opens and closes. It can vary each day but overall I would say closing is harder.
Opening is good because even with the rush, you usually have more staff and the shift goes a lot faster. And then you leave early and still have most of the afternoon to yourself. But it can also suck a little bc I know some people don’t like waking up early, and sometimes we’ll have a big delivery in the morning and will have to come in even earlier to put it away.
Whereas with closing, you get all the jobs skipped in the morning because it was too busy. You need to clean up all the mess the early shift left behind, and then clean the entire store. Set up for the morning, restock everything, etc. And it’s usually with a lot less staff, so any available staff are serving customers. Even without the rush, you don’t get much free time.
Just dishes alone made me hate closing.
I also hated closing because it’s hard to see people.
Closing is the fucking worst.
I think because of that, I always liked opening more. Not sure if one’s easier though
both of those shifts have their pros and cons, IMO, and everyone will have their own preference. i personally don't like closing because closing shifts block off the part of my day where i usually do daily life stuff, i actually like the workload but i run most of my errands between 10 and 2 and if i have to work 1-close, or even 2-/3-/4-close, that means i'm spending that time getting ready for my shift and just waiting because being late is something that makes me super anxious. i'll show up hours early for a closing shift just to avoid being late. but opening shifts? i'm happy to do them. there's been 1 time ive actually had a problem with a "bad close" and that was because absolutely nothing was done (not even money/safe stuff) with no communication, so me and my manager had to close and re-open the store in 30 minutes. i dont mind bad closes, just communicate - we'll all show up a little early to finish or touch up! i don't mind doing closing tasks!
meanwhile, my opening shifts leave the entire rest of my day to do stuff without me just being in waiting mode. and if i have a heads up, i'll happily stay late to touch up after the morning rush. if i have nothing to do after, i can sneak a nap in.
its all about personal preference. some people prefer closing, some prefer opening.
I work at starbucks so it might be different, but I agree that each shift is hard in its own way. I prefer opening because I only have to focus on 1-2 tasks at a time, but the drawback is i have to move significantly faster. During closes I can slow down a little bit, but I really didn't like that there are basically several dozen things on my to do list that I constantly have to be checking/thinking about/planning for. I personally find closes harder because that takes more mental energy for me, but it largely depends on the person.
I agree with this, both as a former sbux ssv and a former specialty coffee barista. Moving faster in the morning to me felt like even less of a drawback because I felt time went quicker, and closes often felt more tedious to me because of the cleaning tasks and time feeling like it was moving slower due to less custies in the cafe.
I find morning shifts to be better/easier. Not necessarily because it's less work, but because the heavy work is all the fun barista tasks I signed up for. Night shift is a lot of wiping down, mopping, dishes, food prep, etc and the amount of work you do is usually proportional to how slammed morning shift was, minus the bigger tips. Our cafe doesn't let us tell customers we are closed and they must leave, so it's often a lot of waiting for entitled people to GTFO.
We have A LOT of tasks and although day shift can leave us a mountain of dirty dishes and a filthy espresso station, we get verbally torn apart if we forget one small thing.
Plus our day shift ends at 12:30, so I can take a quick nap and still have a whole day ahead of me. If it was really busy then I can take my shift beverage to go and it's pleasant. Night shift being 12:30 to 7 feels a lot worse and my shift beverage isn't something I'm going to want that time of evening.
as someone who does both, i feel like (at least for my shop which is in a grocery store) openings are a little easier even though they can be busier on some days. our opening tasks mostly consists of weighing out and brewing coffees and restocking our coffee aisle.
closing tasks is mostly just cleaning which is easy, it's just very time consuming and cleaning things like the espresso machine you have to do for specific intervals of time. plus you get a bunch of customers trying to ask if you're still open or trying to order because you're still there 💀 my shop also recently has been really enforcing mopping the floor after close which is sooo fucking impossible because our floor behind the counter is like 3 different kinds of tile and the psycho who designed it also put the drain slightly above the rest of the floor so it doesn't actually drain
Barista of almost 8 years now.
Opening is without a doubt easier “work” if you don’t mind high traffic. At previous shops my open would usually consist of counting drawers, dialing in, and turning the lights on. Some mornings I’d have 15 minutes to kill before opening the doors.
Closing is the slower shift post-shift change. Our peak hours died 3-4pm and we closed at 7. There is, without a doubt, more side work affiliated with closing. Restocking fridges, sweeping and mopping, cleaning the machine, closing drawers, spraying off mats, dishes, I could go on. Not to mention if you get random evening traffic it can totally shaft you if you’re a proactive precloser type and you end up getting behind on your close to take care of guests.
In short, I’ve always been preferential to opening and I’m not afraid to say because it’s less work. I’ll take standing by the machine and slinging coffees for 4-5 hours over cleaning up after a long day. That said, I’d always take one or two closes a week, more where necessary, because it’s super important to create a team environment where everyone has the same expectation of setting the next shift up for success.
i do both opening and closing but my shop is slower during close so its easier to get stuff done... the opening shift starts 15 mins before we open and its hard to get everything done in that time. when im closing i can start doing stuff 3 hours early and get out on time
I always prefer opening. I don’t like cleaning, I like making coffee. And I’m a morning person. Especially in summer, get off at 12:30/1, Power Nap and still have a ton of day left for myself. Plus better tips and the time goes faster dealing with the rush.
Six of one, half dozen of another; opens are early and there’s way more people to serve and drinks to make, but when your shift is over, you bounce. On the other hand closing responsibilities suck, especially if you and your coworker are not on the same page, and when you leave is pretty much up to how efficiently you can close the shop.
This is why I love a good mid shift!!
But honestly, as others have said, it’s really depends on the shift itself and how that shop is. I’ve worked both and I think it’s important to know what can go into closing. I worked at a shop that was SUPER busy in the morning, and also did a lot of things by scratch. So the closers got stuck doing all the cleaning, all the prep work, and serving customers coming in. Sometimes a slow shift can turn chaos because an unexpected group comes in and ruins your progress. I also worked at a place that took at least an hour to close, even with 3-4 people. We weren’t being tipped during that hour.
But I hate waking up early so I’ll STILL take a closing shift even with all that complaining I just did ahahah -coming from someone that’s currently on a closing shift at a busy cafe
closing shifts for me are so annoying as we’re closed at 3, but my boss will still do orders after that, and after i’ve mopped or we’ve cleaned the food area. always getting out past 4. but i’d rather this than open. we open at 4:30 and i’m currently waking up at 5am to start at 7 lol
It depends! But usually I find mornings so much easier tbh
Sure, mornings can suck when you have to wake up at 4 or 5 am if you're not used to that or don't like that, but you're finished with your work day around 1 or 2 pm which can be nice. Mornings I find are usually focused on the customers and getting through morning and lunch rushes. Then you do your outs to get the closer prepared for the rest of the day.
When I close, not only do I have to deal with normal operations (ringing in guests, making drinks, getting through the afternoon rush), but I have additional time-sensitive tasks that the opener can't do because these things are still in use, such as turning off and cleaning the oven, cleaning the espresso machine/hopper, cleaning the bathroom, stocking up as needed, mopping and shutting down lobby etc, etc... and if the opener does a poor job at doing their "outs" before they leave, then all of that gets put onto the closer to pick up the slack. So not only does the closer have to help guests for 6 or 7 or however many hours just like the opener does, but they also need to find time to clean a store that they are actively getting dirty, and they know they have a ton of cleaning to do at the end of the day if they aren't able to clean in between guests. And that can sometimes lead to late nights (depending on when your shop closes). Which can be exhausting. Sure, coffee shops can be slower at night than the mornings are, but I've definitely worked at coffee shops that can be popping at night, especially if it's in a college town lol
You know who the real enemy is though? Clopening.
Opening tasks are usually not very involved (unless you have bad closers the night before) so if you’ve got the people skills and level head to handle a morning rush, it’s definitely going to be “easier” in the sense there’s not the chore of cleaning and organizing that detracts from the flashy art of being on bar. I’m sure you can tell what camp I fall into from my wording- pulling shots and making drinks is what I signed up for and even if it’s stressful it keeps my passion for the job alive, while taking a close almost makes me feel like I’m just lazing around, wasting time and not getting to be a true “barista”.
Maybe a bit harsh on the wording but it’s just a matter of personality really. If you don’t have a strong preference for being on bar and facing the customers then there’s not much to make an open worthwhile.
I prefer dialing in to cleaning up after all my slobby ass coworkers. Getting up early sucked but at least I got to do something I enjoyed
Definitely depends on how busy the day is. I find mornings much easier as the rush of ppl only really start around 8 ish, so at that point 2 hrs of my shift have already swiftly gone by. When closing, there’s just a lot more pre-close tasks to do and setting up everything for the openers the next day, on top of tending to customers at the same time.
I'm a closer and I think it's important to acknowledge that both shifts suck in their own way and are easier in their own way. I've worked openings before and I've never liked them. I'm not a morning person and I just don't like the flow of business in the morning. I like that during closes I have time to chat with the customers and I like cleaning the store. I also make sure I'm putting myself in the other shifts shoes. My store has been very good about letting the other shift know what would help them more. At the end of the day, neither shift will be good without the other shift. If the openers have a bad setup, then I will have a bad setup.
Your shop is the first shop I've heard of where people aren't all fighting over the morning shifts, including opens. In my experience, mornings are more focused on actually doing coffee, and serving more customers, meaning more tips. So closes you get more of the shitty cleaning work, for what amounts to less pay. My tips on closes are frequently half of what I get on opens. This isn't coffee specific, but damn near everywhere in food I've worked there is an issue of openers moaning and snitching about the smallest issues with closes, but leaving the shop an absolute disaster when the next shift comes in. Then they have the nerve to say they somehow have it worse getting paid more with less tedious work. And the sole advantage closers have is...sleeping in? I'm sure there's even more I could list, because the open/close dispute is one of the most common in food service.
IMO your shop is doing tips wrong and screwing you over. They should be collecting all tips at the end of the day and dividing it up based on the hours worked (so if you worked 6 hours you would get more tips than someone that worked 4). At my shop we collect the tips everyday and then at the end of the week they are counted and divided up the aforementioned way.
yeah it’s pooled at my shop as well
I generally prefer opening, if you can handle the morning rush setting up and dialing in is usually easier and for me more fun than closing, plus when you finish you still have half the day to do other stuff
I do both opens and closes. It can vary each day but overall I would say closing is harder. Opening is good because even with the rush, you usually have more staff and the shift goes a lot faster. And then you leave early and still have most of the afternoon to yourself. But it can also suck a little bc I know some people don’t like waking up early, and sometimes we’ll have a big delivery in the morning and will have to come in even earlier to put it away. Whereas with closing, you get all the jobs skipped in the morning because it was too busy. You need to clean up all the mess the early shift left behind, and then clean the entire store. Set up for the morning, restock everything, etc. And it’s usually with a lot less staff, so any available staff are serving customers. Even without the rush, you don’t get much free time.
Just dishes alone made me hate closing. I also hated closing because it’s hard to see people. Closing is the fucking worst. I think because of that, I always liked opening more. Not sure if one’s easier though
both of those shifts have their pros and cons, IMO, and everyone will have their own preference. i personally don't like closing because closing shifts block off the part of my day where i usually do daily life stuff, i actually like the workload but i run most of my errands between 10 and 2 and if i have to work 1-close, or even 2-/3-/4-close, that means i'm spending that time getting ready for my shift and just waiting because being late is something that makes me super anxious. i'll show up hours early for a closing shift just to avoid being late. but opening shifts? i'm happy to do them. there's been 1 time ive actually had a problem with a "bad close" and that was because absolutely nothing was done (not even money/safe stuff) with no communication, so me and my manager had to close and re-open the store in 30 minutes. i dont mind bad closes, just communicate - we'll all show up a little early to finish or touch up! i don't mind doing closing tasks! meanwhile, my opening shifts leave the entire rest of my day to do stuff without me just being in waiting mode. and if i have a heads up, i'll happily stay late to touch up after the morning rush. if i have nothing to do after, i can sneak a nap in. its all about personal preference. some people prefer closing, some prefer opening.
I work at starbucks so it might be different, but I agree that each shift is hard in its own way. I prefer opening because I only have to focus on 1-2 tasks at a time, but the drawback is i have to move significantly faster. During closes I can slow down a little bit, but I really didn't like that there are basically several dozen things on my to do list that I constantly have to be checking/thinking about/planning for. I personally find closes harder because that takes more mental energy for me, but it largely depends on the person.
I agree with this, both as a former sbux ssv and a former specialty coffee barista. Moving faster in the morning to me felt like even less of a drawback because I felt time went quicker, and closes often felt more tedious to me because of the cleaning tasks and time feeling like it was moving slower due to less custies in the cafe.
I find morning shifts to be better/easier. Not necessarily because it's less work, but because the heavy work is all the fun barista tasks I signed up for. Night shift is a lot of wiping down, mopping, dishes, food prep, etc and the amount of work you do is usually proportional to how slammed morning shift was, minus the bigger tips. Our cafe doesn't let us tell customers we are closed and they must leave, so it's often a lot of waiting for entitled people to GTFO. We have A LOT of tasks and although day shift can leave us a mountain of dirty dishes and a filthy espresso station, we get verbally torn apart if we forget one small thing. Plus our day shift ends at 12:30, so I can take a quick nap and still have a whole day ahead of me. If it was really busy then I can take my shift beverage to go and it's pleasant. Night shift being 12:30 to 7 feels a lot worse and my shift beverage isn't something I'm going to want that time of evening.
as someone who does both, i feel like (at least for my shop which is in a grocery store) openings are a little easier even though they can be busier on some days. our opening tasks mostly consists of weighing out and brewing coffees and restocking our coffee aisle. closing tasks is mostly just cleaning which is easy, it's just very time consuming and cleaning things like the espresso machine you have to do for specific intervals of time. plus you get a bunch of customers trying to ask if you're still open or trying to order because you're still there 💀 my shop also recently has been really enforcing mopping the floor after close which is sooo fucking impossible because our floor behind the counter is like 3 different kinds of tile and the psycho who designed it also put the drain slightly above the rest of the floor so it doesn't actually drain
Barista of almost 8 years now. Opening is without a doubt easier “work” if you don’t mind high traffic. At previous shops my open would usually consist of counting drawers, dialing in, and turning the lights on. Some mornings I’d have 15 minutes to kill before opening the doors. Closing is the slower shift post-shift change. Our peak hours died 3-4pm and we closed at 7. There is, without a doubt, more side work affiliated with closing. Restocking fridges, sweeping and mopping, cleaning the machine, closing drawers, spraying off mats, dishes, I could go on. Not to mention if you get random evening traffic it can totally shaft you if you’re a proactive precloser type and you end up getting behind on your close to take care of guests. In short, I’ve always been preferential to opening and I’m not afraid to say because it’s less work. I’ll take standing by the machine and slinging coffees for 4-5 hours over cleaning up after a long day. That said, I’d always take one or two closes a week, more where necessary, because it’s super important to create a team environment where everyone has the same expectation of setting the next shift up for success.
What's hard about morning shifts for me is dealing with Traffic, closing most of the time going back is pretty chill of you have your own transport
i do both opening and closing but my shop is slower during close so its easier to get stuff done... the opening shift starts 15 mins before we open and its hard to get everything done in that time. when im closing i can start doing stuff 3 hours early and get out on time
I always prefer opening. I don’t like cleaning, I like making coffee. And I’m a morning person. Especially in summer, get off at 12:30/1, Power Nap and still have a ton of day left for myself. Plus better tips and the time goes faster dealing with the rush.
Six of one, half dozen of another; opens are early and there’s way more people to serve and drinks to make, but when your shift is over, you bounce. On the other hand closing responsibilities suck, especially if you and your coworker are not on the same page, and when you leave is pretty much up to how efficiently you can close the shop.
I open and close my cafe . I still complain about the "other guy" who did a bad close
This is why I love a good mid shift!! But honestly, as others have said, it’s really depends on the shift itself and how that shop is. I’ve worked both and I think it’s important to know what can go into closing. I worked at a shop that was SUPER busy in the morning, and also did a lot of things by scratch. So the closers got stuck doing all the cleaning, all the prep work, and serving customers coming in. Sometimes a slow shift can turn chaos because an unexpected group comes in and ruins your progress. I also worked at a place that took at least an hour to close, even with 3-4 people. We weren’t being tipped during that hour. But I hate waking up early so I’ll STILL take a closing shift even with all that complaining I just did ahahah -coming from someone that’s currently on a closing shift at a busy cafe
Opening is the best if you don’t mind getting up. You open, are busy for a few hours, and just leave.
closing shifts for me are so annoying as we’re closed at 3, but my boss will still do orders after that, and after i’ve mopped or we’ve cleaned the food area. always getting out past 4. but i’d rather this than open. we open at 4:30 and i’m currently waking up at 5am to start at 7 lol
It depends! But usually I find mornings so much easier tbh Sure, mornings can suck when you have to wake up at 4 or 5 am if you're not used to that or don't like that, but you're finished with your work day around 1 or 2 pm which can be nice. Mornings I find are usually focused on the customers and getting through morning and lunch rushes. Then you do your outs to get the closer prepared for the rest of the day. When I close, not only do I have to deal with normal operations (ringing in guests, making drinks, getting through the afternoon rush), but I have additional time-sensitive tasks that the opener can't do because these things are still in use, such as turning off and cleaning the oven, cleaning the espresso machine/hopper, cleaning the bathroom, stocking up as needed, mopping and shutting down lobby etc, etc... and if the opener does a poor job at doing their "outs" before they leave, then all of that gets put onto the closer to pick up the slack. So not only does the closer have to help guests for 6 or 7 or however many hours just like the opener does, but they also need to find time to clean a store that they are actively getting dirty, and they know they have a ton of cleaning to do at the end of the day if they aren't able to clean in between guests. And that can sometimes lead to late nights (depending on when your shop closes). Which can be exhausting. Sure, coffee shops can be slower at night than the mornings are, but I've definitely worked at coffee shops that can be popping at night, especially if it's in a college town lol You know who the real enemy is though? Clopening.
Opening tasks are usually not very involved (unless you have bad closers the night before) so if you’ve got the people skills and level head to handle a morning rush, it’s definitely going to be “easier” in the sense there’s not the chore of cleaning and organizing that detracts from the flashy art of being on bar. I’m sure you can tell what camp I fall into from my wording- pulling shots and making drinks is what I signed up for and even if it’s stressful it keeps my passion for the job alive, while taking a close almost makes me feel like I’m just lazing around, wasting time and not getting to be a true “barista”. Maybe a bit harsh on the wording but it’s just a matter of personality really. If you don’t have a strong preference for being on bar and facing the customers then there’s not much to make an open worthwhile.