We are seeking a deeply experienced, highly specialized Specialty Coffee Consultant to support the strategic development, technical setup, and operational refinement of our coffee business. This role is intended for a proven industry expert with end-to-end experience across the specialty coffee value chain — from green bean sourcing and roasting strategy to café design, equipment planning, workflow optimization, service standards, retail performance, and go-to-market execution.
This is not a general advisory role. We are looking for someone with exceptional technical credibility, commercial understanding, and practical operating knowledge with proven track record who can help us build a best-in-class coffee program from the ground up. The successful candidate will serve as a key strategic partner in defining standards, systems, and decisions that shape both the quality and long-term viability of our new shop.
The ideal candidate combines deep coffee expertise with the ability to translate vision into disciplined execution. They understand not only what “good” looks like in specialty coffee, but how to build the sourcing, roasting, equipment, workflow, training, retail, and customer experience systems that make excellence repeatable at scale.
Key Duties & Responsibilities
1) Coffee Program Strategy & Concept Development
- Advise on the development of a differentiated specialty coffee program aligned with the company’s brand, target customer, service model, and commercial objectives.
- Define the coffee philosophy, quality positioning, and program architecture for the new shop.
- Recommend best practices for building a coffee offer that balances craft, operational feasibility, profitability, and guest appeal.
- Guide key decisions around beverage identity, menu hierarchy, house standards, seasonal offerings, and overall coffee experience.
- Establish foundational principles for how coffee quality, hospitality, retail presentation, and education should work together as a unified concept.
2) Green Bean Sourcing & Supply Chain Advisory
- Provide expert guidance on green coffee sourcing strategy, including origin selection, supplier evaluation, importer relationships, seasonal buying considerations, quality benchmarks, and risk factors.
- Advise on approaches to procurement that support consistency, distinctiveness, traceability, and commercial sustainability.
- Evaluate opportunities for direct trade, relationship coffee, importer-led sourcing, or blended sourcing models depending on brand objectives.
- Support the development of sourcing criteria related to cup profile, processing method, price sensitivity, availability, and storytelling value.
- Assess supply chain resilience, quality risk, and continuity planning for key coffees and program components.
- Recommend best practices in green coffee selection for espresso, filter, retail, and seasonal offerings.
3) Roasting Strategy & Product Quality Development
- Advise on roasting philosophy, profile direction, and product architecture to support the desired guest experience and brand positioning.
- Support decisions related to roast style, flavor clarity, solubility targets, espresso suitability, milk performance, and filter expression.
- Collaborate with internal teams or external roasting partners to define standards for coffee development, consistency, and sensory expectations.
- Establish cupping, evaluation, and quality assurance frameworks for roasted coffee.
- Provide technical direction on how roasting choices influence extraction, bar workflow, retail appeal, and customer accessibility.
- Recommend systems for maintaining consistency across production, seasonal transitions, and menu rotation.
4) Café Opening, Layout & Workflow Optimization
- Advise on all operational aspects of opening a new coffee shop, ensuring that layout, service model, equipment placement, and staffing design support both efficiency and hospitality.
- Review or help shape café layout plans with a focus on bar flow, customer movement, production efficiency, ergonomics, safety, and service quality.
- Identify and solve workflow bottlenecks before opening.
- Establish optimal sequencing for drink production, dish flow, takeaway operations, order handoff, bussing, restocking, and peak-hour movement.
- Ensure that the café’s physical setup supports quality execution under real operating conditions.
- Provide recommendations on front bar design, back counter functionality, storage logic, refrigeration placement, point-of-sale positioning, and retail integration.
5) Equipment Strategy & Technical Specification
- Lead or advise on equipment selection across espresso machines, grinders, batch brewers, hand-brew systems, water filtration, refrigeration, ice, dishwashing, undercounter systems, and support tools.
- Recommend equipment solutions based on volume projections, drink mix, workflow demands, training requirements, maintenance needs, and desired cup quality.
- Assess trade-offs between premium, high-performance, and operationally practical options.
- Advise on equipment specifications, utility requirements, installation needs, preventive maintenance considerations, and service support.
- Ensure equipment packages align with bar design, labor model, menu strategy, and long-term operating goals.
- Provide technical guidance on calibration standards, grinder strategy, redundancy planning, and setup requirements for launch readiness.
6) Retail, Merchandising & Customer Experience Development
- Advise on retail coffee strategy including whole bean assortment, packaging logic, merchandising standards, customer education, and attachment opportunities.
- Recommend approaches to retail presentation that strengthen brand identity and increase conversion.
- Support development of product storytelling around origin, processing, roasting, and brew application.
- Guide the integration of retail coffee, brewing tools, and supporting products into the guest journey in a way that feels natural and commercially effective.
- Help shape an elevated in-store experience where coffee quality, education, visual merchandising, and service reinforce one another.
7) Sales, Marketing & Commercial Advisory
- Provide specialty-coffee-informed input into brand positioning, coffee messaging, launch communications, and customer acquisition strategy.
- Advise on how to communicate coffee quality and differentiation without alienating guests.
- Support development of marketing language, coffee storytelling, seasonal campaigns, launch features, and menu communication.
- Identify opportunities to improve sales through better menu structure, offer clarity, upselling pathways, customer education, and retail integration.
- Provide guidance on how coffee expertise can be translated into a compelling and commercially viable customer proposition.
- Contribute to launch planning and market-facing strategy where coffee quality and credibility are central to brand identity.
8) Training, Capability Building & Knowledge Transfer
- Assess team capability needs and support the development of training frameworks for baristas, managers, and leadership teams.
- Establish core technical competencies for espresso preparation, milk texturing, brewing, sensory evaluation, customer interaction, and equipment handling.
- Provide training, coaching, calibration support, and structured knowledge transfer to internal teams.
- Help ensure best practices are embedded in the organization rather than remaining consultant-dependent.
- Support the creation of standards documentation, quality guides, recipe systems, and evaluation methods for ongoing team development.
9) Strategic Advisory to Leadership
- Act as a senior subject matter expert to ownership and leadership on key coffee-related decisions.
- Evaluate proposed investments, vendor relationships, operating models, and strategic choices through the lens of both specialty coffee quality and business viability.
- Help leadership avoid common mistakes in café setup, coffee program design, equipment purchasing, service model planning, and brand positioning.
- Provide practical recommendations grounded in proven industry experience rather than theory alone.
- Advise on short-, medium-, and long-term priorities for building a credible and sustainable specialty coffee business.
Qualifications & Requirements
Required Qualifications
- Extensive senior-level experience in the specialty coffee industry, with demonstrable expertise across multiple parts of the coffee value chain.
- Proven experience in green coffee sourcing, roasting strategy, café operations, retail coffee, and new coffee shop opening.
- Deep understanding of specialty coffee quality systems, sensory evaluation, brew theory, extraction, recipe development, and service execution.
- Strong knowledge of café design principles as they relate to operational workflow, ergonomics, and customer experience.
- High-level technical understanding of commercial coffee equipment, installation requirements, calibration, maintenance considerations, and operational fit.
- Demonstrated ability to build or advise on coffee programs that are both quality-driven and commercially viable.
- Experience developing SOPs, best-practice operating systems, and scalable training frameworks.
- Strong commercial understanding of menu design, retail strategy, labor implications, cost control, and customer conversion.
- Experience working with roasters, green importers, equipment vendors, architects, designers, operators, and brand stakeholders.
- Ability to diagnose gaps quickly and provide practical, implementable recommendations.
- Excellent communication skills with the ability to advise both executive leadership and front-line operations teams.
- Strong project leadership and cross-functional collaboration capability.
Preferred Qualifications
- 8+ years of experience in specialty coffee, with a track record of building, leading, or advising high-performing coffee businesses.
- Recognized credibility within the specialty coffee industry.
- Experience opening premium or design-led café concepts from pre-launch through operational stabilization.
- Formal certifications, competition background, Q-grader credentials, SCA qualifications, or equivalent industry-recognized expertise.
- Experience working across both wholesale and retail coffee models.
- Exposure to brand development, coffee packaging strategy, launch marketing, and customer education.
- Experience advising founders, hospitality groups, or growth-stage coffee businesses.
- International or multi-market coffee sourcing and product development experience.
Work Style / Engagement Expectations
- Able to work strategically and hands-on as required
- Comfortable advising founders, leadership teams, and operators
- Willing to review concepts in detail and challenge assumptions where needed
- Able to balance premium standards with real-world business constraints
- Available to support key development phases including planning, build-out, pre-opening, and launch readiness
Physical / Travel Requirements
- Ability to conduct on-site café reviews, bar assessments, equipment evaluations, and training sessions as needed
- Willingness to travel for supplier visits, café setup, sourcing meetings, or launch support if required
- Ability to work in active café, roastery, and project environments
Compensation
Compensation: Competitive and commensurate with depth of expertise, track record, and scope of engagement.
Equal Opportunity Statement
Slo Coffee is committed to building an inclusive, respectful, and high-performing workplace. We welcome candidates from diverse backgrounds who bring excellence, integrity, and a genuine passion for specialty coffee and hospitality.
