Become a barista in retirement

Coming Out of Retirement: Become a Barista

Be a barista at any age… including while you are in your senior and post-retirement years. This may not be as strange as you think. Whether or not you find yourself a few years into retirement, becoming a barista may be an option for you. If you feel like you are ready to retire, it seems like you missed something in your professional career… Perhaps, you would like to retire, and now you are looking for something more: bringing more value, more benefit to the world around you. This is where the thoughts about a post-retirement job start to circulate in your head.

You may have been forced into retirement for any number of reasons: your company went bankrupt; your employer was forced to do staffing cuts; a tornado hit your city, and many businesses closed down. You are not ready to retire yet, so you are forced to look for a new job, sometimes radically change your career.

In any case, you may be considering re-joining the workforce. Now, more than ever, you don’t know what to do. You might feel intimidated to start something new. Or you might feel nervous about how people will receive you at your new job. Or you think that your expectations might not come true at the next job.

You may not be feeling the drive to “go back to school,” but you want to learn and be challenged. Going back to school can be too expensive to afford these days, especially when you are unemployed. You might be considering some online courses on developing various skills – from accounting to online marketing – but all of them seem to be too detached from your reality.

Let us give you a hint. Perhaps, you may want to take an online barista course!

Not sure what to do? Be a barista!

Lack of communication and social isolation is the number one reason for getting a post-retirement job. You might feel like after retirement, your social circle is shrinking, and you want to reverse this process. If you are retired and don’t feel completely comfortable being at home, becoming a barista is a perfect option for retirement.

Reasons for being a barista after retirement:

• Flexible schedule. Being a barista offers you flexible shifts at a coffee shop and a possibility to exchange your shifts with your co-workers. You can choose to work part-time if you feel like the full-shift workload is too heavy for you and your physical state. However, if you feel like you want to work more, you can always ask for more hours. Being a barista is not a very stressful job than those you have had before, but some physical efforts are necessary here.
• Learning a new craft. Continuous learning is key to keeping your mind agile and memory sharp. Your mental health is something that directly affects the length and quality of your life. Of course, you can spend the rest of your retirement time doing meaningful, but it may not substitute learning a real skill that you can apply every day to serve people the greatest coffee in your area. Learning a barista craft is not very difficult; it just needs daily practice until you learn how to steam the milk and pour perfectly balanced espressos. Another great benefit is that you don’t need to go to school or pay for your barista training – coffee shops usually provide basic barista training. But if you want to be ready in advance, consider getting an affordable Barista Training Guide.

Becoming a Barista After Retirement

• Start having fun! Being bored at home can become a reason for depression and feel blue. Maybe you are happy to be retired, but you enjoyed the social aspects of your former work: engaging with your colleagues and clients, holding business meetings, and presenting your reports. With a barista job, you can get it all back and even more. Unlike any office job you might have had before, a barista job provides a lot of fun and a sense of fulfillment.
• Higher social security benefits. Your social security benefits depend on the number of your earnings over your lifetime and the age when you apply for retirement benefits. This means the longer you work, the greater the retirement benefits you’ll be eligible for. Just a few more years of working as a barista can have a great impact on your financial security and stress-free life. Together with the health benefits that a barista job provides, you can lower the financial burden on your household.
• Financial Benefits. This might sound like a surprise, but if you belong to a generation of baby boomers, you will probably face the retirement crisis related to little savings, high healthcare costs, and low retirement income. Today there are about 75 million baby boomers in the U.S., and by 2030 all of them will reach the age of 65.

Why Coffee Shop Owners Value Your Experience

If you reached your retirement age, it means you have a lot of experience under your belt. Not only professional experience, but you know people by now, you can see them through, and you have more empathy. And these are the perfect barista traits that coffee shop owners hunt for. You can master any skill, but you can’t change your personality.

Don’t be intimidated by starting your barista job after retirement!

You’ve probably heard the myth that coffee careers are only for the young – it’s not true! Coffee is for everyone who loves coffee. In fact, age can be an important advantage in working in the coffee business – older people have perspective, maturity, problem-solving skills, social skills, and are often more reliable.

What Does a Barista Do?

The main barista's responsibility is not just making coffee but creating a positive coffee experience for your customers. Your customer service skills come from your attitude and heart, and by the time you arrive to work in a coffee shop, you have developed an awareness of the present moment and kindness to people.

Basic Barista Responsibilities:

• Operate an espresso machine, grinder, and other appliances
• Prepare different coffee drinks and other beverages (teas, hot chocolate, smoothies)
• Keep an effective work environment through your positive attitude, motivation, and consistency.
• Clean an espresso machine, barista workstation, and tabletops
• Remember coffee and other drink recipes
• Coach and train other employees
• Unload and carry coffee bags and other supplies*
• Perform “opening” or “closing” duties
• Maintain a certain dress code and other established policies
• Engage with each customer in a positive and effective manner

 

* You may be asked to lift a certain amount of weight. However, you should be able to ask for reasonable accommodations.

How Can You Learn To Be a Barista

There are many ways to learn how to be a barista. The easiest way is to attend a barista school that provides theoretical coffee knowledge and hands-on training. Despite some obvious advantages like practical training, such courses are usually overpriced, and very few people can afford them.

Books are a great source of knowledge about coffee history and coffee chemistry. You will find exhaustive information on operating and maintaining an espresso machine, dial-in coffee, and steam the milk to pour latte art. Books might provide some pictures of how coffee grounds or espresso crema may look like, but you won’t be able to see all the coffee extraction steps.

Taking an online barista course. Online barista training provides a perfect balance of textual information and visual step-by-step guides. With your own eyes, you can see how the coffee is being ground, dosed, extracted, and served. The same goes for the milk steaming process. It's better to see something once than to hear about it a thousand times.

Get The Barista Training You Need to Get Your First Job as a Barista

Along with streaming barista training videos, our team offers The Beginning Barista Guide, which focuses on coffee topics essential for starting baristas and people who never worked in coffee before. This affordable resource is packed with information you can’t find anywhere else online. Resources include how to prepare for a barista job, how to write your barista resume, how to increase your tip income, how to boost your efficiency, etc.

Brought to you by Barista Training Academy. Read “The Beginning Barista” Your Ultimate Prep Guide to Getting Your First Job as a Barista” is an ultimate resource available online. It is affordable for anybody who is looking to start a career in the coffee industry. For more information, visit our blog.