Over the past 10 years, Jonathan has helped over 25+ different hospitality businesses around the world to get started, improve or take 360° turns in order to better satisfy their customer needs, and make profits while providing first class services and products. In Aligned Coffee, we truly believe in the power of sharing and educating, that is why we are glad to help you all in your entrepreneurship pathways.

As coffee consultants, our mission is to make the learning curve of opening a coffee and hospitality business, a lot easier for you, so you can truly focus on making your dreams of a successful business a reality.

Coffee is a market with millions of people looking for it daily, and with the correct help, you can get into that market in a fast, consistent, and sustainable way. We are here to guide you through all the steps you might need to take in order to go from zero to profit. It does not matter if you are wanting to open a coffee shop, or coffee cart for events, or develop a coffee program for you restaurant, or even create your own coffee beans or drinks brand. Our experience qualifies us to be your best ally, all along the way by supporting you with knowledge, motivation, passion, tools, resources and the heart to make your project work.

We have a few different coffee consulting services, here you have them one by one:

1. Coffee Menu Development
2. Coffee bar design and workflow
3. Coffee equipment selection and layout
4. Coffee Shop design
5. Barista Training (with or without SCA certification)
6. Brand building
7. Product development
8. Marketing Planning and Web Design
9. Manuals creation (procedures, operations, employees, etc.)

So what can you expect from Aligned Coffee Consulting?

This will absolutely depend on what you are looking for. We are sure that our wide range of available services, can fit you well for one, or all the phases of your business. Are you looking to improve your menu or create a new one? Improve the bar efficiency of your shop? Design a coffee business from zero to profit? Source and select the right coffee equipment? Create your own coffee training program? Upgrade your Team members skills? Standardize all your processes and operations? Have a better presence in social media and across the internet? or simply making your espressos tastier?
We got you covered in all these aspects and more. Any project is the exact same as another one, and not every shoe fits every person.

Our consulting services are a custom-tailored process in which we put our knowledge and experience (considering all the wins, and FAILS that we have learned along the years) at your service to help you building a successful and efficient business that you will not only be profitable and sustainable, but you can feel good and proud about.

We have multiple ways of working with you, including combination of phone calls, email, video chat, and on site visits depending on your needs. We are currently based in the USA, but we are available anywhere we are needed worldwide 😉

COFFEE CONSULTING

Are you ready to start? Our rates start at $150 per hour, depending on the service needed. We are currently offering a complimentary 15 minutes clarity call for FREE. Click on the link below to book a time and talk to our experts:

The main essence of your business is your menu. Your place can be the most beautifully designed, but what will truly make your customers come back again and recommend you, is the products you will be serving and their quality. The menu is your way to tell your story through your customer’s senses.

Aligned Coffee works with you to plan, create and develop an outstanding coffee menu. Starting from understanding who is your ideal client and market, to the use development of recipes based on innovative ingredients that align with your brand concept.

In our menu consulting, we help you design hot, cold, and frozen beverages, as well as signature drinks specific of your own business. Also, since Jonathan is a professional chef as well, we can help you with the whole food menu, and complimentary retail items for a new level experience on your customer’s palate.

All the items we create for the menus, are presented together with detailed financial metrics such as standard recipes with specific amounts to be used per ingredient and their costs. We also develop the pricing policies based on your financial goals, analyzing the competition, and with the use of numeric formulas to ensure that your margins are the best in terms of profitability, making your business self-sustainable in the long term.

In addition, we will guide you in the implementing of this menu in your business, hands-on with your staff, not only by teaching them how to produce each recipe in the correct way, but also how to market each product in order to improve your sales.

In a few words, we will help you with:

– Defining your ideal target clientele.
– Standard Recipes, ingredients and suppliers.
– Product Cost, Pricing and Metrics.
– Detailed recipe training and sales pitch.

To begin with this, you must understand that each step towards the creation of a product is money that you are investing into it. It is not the same to prepare a drink that has five production steps, to prepare one that has ten steps. In the same way, it is not the same to have everything you need on hand, than needing to walk around the space in order to find your ingredients. Each extra step that is needed in order to create a product, is extra money you will spend. The truly excellence of it is on the attention to the details.

Your coffee business should look good of course, that is a no brainer. But other than looking good, it MUST be functional. The key in a successful business is to have every item situated in a specific place for a specific reason.

Our guidance in this area will support you with the experience that comes from all the years as seasoned coffee professionals who not only have prepared thousands of drinks in different café set-ups, but also have wide experience in both Culinary and Coffee competitions, where the location of each ingredient is key for the success of the operation.

We will guide you in the design of beautiful spaces that are functional, where you do not need to take unnecessary steps in order to prepare a recipe; avoiding movement between zones and any possible injuries caused by bad movements or working positions.

By doing all of this, we can guarantee that your customers will have a flawlessly experience from the moment that they arrive, to the moment they leave your place, and with this, your profitability will be maximized.

Just think that each unnecessary step, can be translated in hundreds towards the end of the day. Our bar design and workflow consulting services help you to create a fun, beautiful, fast and functional space.

Thanks to our years of experience in the Industry, we can truly understand how important is to have the right tool in order to produce the best results. By accompanying you during your business Journey, we can understand what your specific needs are, including but not limited to your space, the type of business, your location, and of course your budget for each part of the business. With this information, we can recommend you different suppliers and brands for your equipment from our trusted partners.

In order to know what equipment you might be needing, we will get deep in the understanding of your business model. Are you focused on to go orders? Fast paced walk ins? Is your shop a place where people come to sit and work? Do you offer blended drinks on your menu? Do you plan to sell more espresso based drinks or drip coffee? Are you planning to serve more than one kind of coffee beans at the same time?

By knowing all this information, we will get hands on the recommendations, sourcing, and even installing all the equipment you might need, either if it is a $3,000 single group espresso machine or a $30,000 three group full of tech features machine, an entry level grinder or a GBW smart grinder, a single or multiple Batch Brewer, small equipment like scales, coffee brewers, cups, and more. Even if want to include roasting coffee in your operations, you can trust us to support you.

But, why is it so important to have the right equipment?

Think about it this way:
You plan to sell a minimum of 500 cups of coffee a day. In the scenario A, you have a two groups espresso machine that is semi automatic, so the barista needs to be paying full attention to each of the espresso extractions. On top of this, you grinders are not fully automatic, which means you either will need to weight individually your coffee grounds for each coffee, or risk consistency by not doing it. On the other hand, you have an automatic volumetric espresso machine with scales incorporated on the tray, and your grinders have Grind by Weight Technology, which means that every single dose you will be grinding, will be the exact same.

In the scenario A, you might end up spending at least an extra 15 – 20 seconds per drink , which translates to a total of 2 to 3 extra hours a day to produce the same 500 drinks. All of this without even considering the burnout of your team members.

With this example, we know you might understand better why choosing the appropriate equipment is a KEY part of your business, and we are here to support you fully along the process.

After all these years, we have worked with several outstanding architects, contractors, and interior designers, but you know what we have found is key piece most of them were missing?
Exactly, Coffee and Restaurant Experience. It is not the same to know how to make a place beautifully looking, than make it functional and efficiency focused. Do not take us wrong, we are not professional architects, designers or contractors, but we are professionals in our field, and we know the needs of these businesses from the inside, from the barista or chef workflow.

In our services, we create together with you the ideal set up and design of your efficient, beautiful business, and from there, we work with the architects, contractors and interior designers to make it happen, taking that vision to a reality.

The importance of getting together as a group of professionals, is to help you create a business that looks good, works flawlessly, and it is compliant with the local regulations. Even if we can’t know all the local Health Board and City planning requirements, we can help you to navigate those waters and get you ready for success.

By putting together a good menu design, key equipment layout based on an efficient workflow, in a beautifully looking and efficient place, you can relax and focus your energy in growing your business consistently from zero to profit.

Coming specifically from where we started, as Culinary techniques and barista trainers, we fully understand that the success of your business relies on your human resources. We believe that every human being has a good intention, but that does not mean that skills are not important, and as much as we can confirm that skills are developed through time, it is vital to start your business with the right foot, by training your Team members, setting them up for the work that needs to be done, in order for the success of the whole team.

Your barista’s training, skill level and attitude can get you to the top of the world, or on the other end, break your business. Inconsistent product quality, excessive waste, dirty workflow, or a bad toxic attitude can destroy all the hard work and money you have invested in your dreams.

For a barista, it is very important to serve customer’s with a big smile, while also elaborating top quality drinks at a rapid pace with precision, care and aligned good intentions. And as easy as it sounds, it is not.
One of the mistakes we make as business owners is to believe, that our team members are ready to start supporting our brand, when they are not. It is key that everyone in your team understands and know the whys of your menu design, bar flow, and equipment features.

One can only truly understand the structure of something after a learning curve of experimenting and developing skills. There is a huge difference between team members that only repeat what they are told to do, and team members that understand why things happen and how to make them. This specific care that you put in creating and building your team, can be another angular stone of your business success.

Our barista training programs focus on the understanding of the coffee industry, and the complete coffee value chain from seed to cup. We are big believers of the power of education, and the importance of knowing why, when, and how for every step we take as professionals.

Aligned Coffee has two main education pathways:

1. Our own Aligned Coffee programs where we focus on the development of specific skills needed to start in the coffee industry from understanding the process of the bean, from seed to cup, to the proper use of the equipment, espresso calibration and grinder dial-in, correct milk frothing, drinks assembly and adequate workflow. With this training you will plant strong seeds on your Team, that will allow them to grow step by step, in a consistent way across the coffee industry and different roles. This training is based on consistency, quality, speed, and attitude.

2. Aligned Coffee, also gives you the opportunity of taking your Team to another level, by teaching the International Coffee Skills Programs developed by the Specialty Coffee Association, through Jonathan, our Authorized SCA Trainer.
The SCA Coffee Skills program includes six different specific modules (Introduction to Coffee, Barista Skills, Brewing, Green Coffee, Roasting & Sensory Skills), and can be an opportunity for taking your Team into a worldwide standardized level.

which program is better?

BOTH, we definitely encourage you to plan for the future and consider getting your Team Members certified into a worldwide level. The main difference between our programs are that one is based on the development of specific skills needed to work daily in a café set-up, and the other is based on an international, and standardized knowledge that will give your team members more confidence and knowledge in order to develop their own coffee careers in a solid way.

In both our Training programs, Aligned Coffee dials in:

1. Bar set up and preparation.
2. Drinks types, ratios and differences.
3. Measurement, and consistency.
4. Equipment calibration.
5. Correct preparation, from grinding, dosing, tamping, and shot pulling.
6. Milk frothing.
7. Ingredient Mice in place.
8. Speed in the assembly line.
9. Conscious practices, being present, putting your heart into what you do.
10. Equipment Maitenance.
11. Outstanding customer service, coffee speech and communication skills.

Want to learn more about our Specialty Coffee Association Certified Courses?

For us, as Aligned Coffee, and all the businesses we had the privilege to partner with, having a solid BRAND is extremely important because it’s the vehicle that will get you into your customer’s thoughts constantly. But, what is a brand?

A brand is a feature or group of features that identifies you as a seller of goods or services, and what make you different from all the others around you. To be a successful business owner and entrepreneur, you must create not only products, but rather EXPERIENCES. An experience can be an unique differentiating factor when getting in a competitive market, and by creating a brand that focuses in all of the details needed to guarantee an outstanding customer experience, you will be able to turn your customers into loyals and promoters of your brand. There is no better marketing for your company than a happy customer, that believes and resonates with your brand.

Having a solid brand will also allow you to expand and duplicate your business model in the future, while also protecting your business from the competition, so you can build a sustainable entrepreneurship that can stand the test of time.

Our consulting team can support you with:

– Creating your overall idea, mission, vision and core business values.
– Define your target market and ideal clientele.
– Design your Brand Concept: Business concept, name, slogan, logo, colors, applications, and brand manuals.
– Website and social media planning and creation.
– Merchandising development, anything that you can think of for your future customers.
– Coffee Shop Styling, including but not limited to: Team member uniforms, aprons, retail items, etc.

As many of our industry business owners, we also started in a very small way because we did not have much money to invest in our beginnings. Aligned Coffee beans side of the business was born out of a garage with a small 2 pound coffee roaster, a bag sealer, and a label printer. Less than $5000 in total investment. We were conscious enough that it was not a big operation, but we also knew that with the correct amount of dedication, passion & love, we could make it work and grow. One year after this humble start, we were able to meet a few coffee business owners, and one thing connected us to the other and we ended up having the most successful year in our whole story of business.

But what is the lesson here?

You DO NOT need to start directly as a coffee shop owner. There are endless possibilities that require lower capital to invest, and can help you by getting you started as a coffee business owner, putting you in the coffee map of your community. It can be your own roasted coffee beans brand, or a subscription plan that works with multiple roasters from across the country, or your own bottled cold brew business, and even your own coffee focused clothing brand. There are no limits, and we are here to support you step by step in your path of developing your own product or service.

After creating an amazing product and brand that you feel good about, and makes you feel proud, what is the next key step?

Exactly, you need to actually market it and promote it in order to start generating more and more business consistently. There are multiple ways to do it but there are 2 main lines that you should be focusing on:

1. Online Marketing
2. Regular In Person Marketing

We are currently living in a very digitalized society, and according to the researches, it will keep growing and growing. This is enough reason why you should invest in creating your own digital ways of communicating with your customers. From the beginning, your business should at least have: a website, a Facebook or Instagram page, and a google business profile.

Our Team can guide you through all the steps needed to start creating your online marketing platforms, and if you already have your online expert, we can help you with valuable insight about the industry, so you can optimize your results.

With this being said, let’s not forget that there are still a lot of people who are not very digital, so it is important as well to have a way of promoting your business in real life, such as banners, signage, business cards, flyers, etc. We can also help you with the outlines for the creation of all this promotional packages, so you can develop promotion products that not only look good, but are also insightful.

After having these 2 kind of products ready, the next step is to create a plan of action that you can follow and consistently execute in order to promote your business. A plan that includes different Key performance indicators, so you can actually track what alternatives are performing correctly, what is impacting positively, and what should be improved or replaced in order to keep growing your business presence. By creating a good marketing plan, you will have a solid course of action so you can focus on being consistent and dedicated, working daily towards the success and promotion of your business.

Through all of these steps, we are here to guide, help and support you.

Think further ahead in time. Your business is doing incredibly well, and you start getting requests to franchise your business, or even sell it for a good amount of money. What would you need to be able to do this?

MANUALS, rules and regulations. As business owners ourselves, we understand how tedious and not very motivating it is to create documents that include all the information about our business, from job descriptions, opening and closing procedures, cash handling procedures, inventory management and ordering procedures, equipment lists, operational inventory, cleaning procedures, maintenance procedures, employee handbooks, revenue management policies, and more.

Everything in a business is a process, a process that should be standardized and known by everyone involved in the business. We are here to support you in the creation of all these documents, that will give you clarity, comfort and peace of mind across all your business operations, and who knows, it can even get your path ready for franchising your business.

COFFEE SHOP CONSULTING REQUEST FORM

Our rates start at $150 per hour, depending on the service needed. We are currently offering a complimentary 15 minutes clarity call for FREE. Fill out this form, and then click on the link below to book a time and talk to our experts.

SCHEDULE A FREE 15 MINUTE CALL

NEED ANSWERS NOW?

Send us an email to: alignedcoffee@gmail.com

During our years of experience, we have worked with coffee professionals and successful business in every part of the industry, some of them include: