The Walk In

At both shops, the door's unlocked by seven most mornings. For a good stretch after that, it's just whoever opened, the machines warming up, and the street outside.

In summer the air outside is cool and easy. In winter it's still dark, and the cold gets into your hands before the key's even in the door. The street itself is quiet in a specific way, not empty, there's always a delivery van somewhere, someone opening the shop two doors down, but quiet in the sense that nobody's there for us yet.

Once you're in, the first half an hour is mostly mechanical. Dishwasher on, its hum starting before anything else does. Toaster on. Some of the lights, not all of them yet. The grinder starts up loud in the empty room. Batch brew goes on early because it needs the time. The pastry and cake display gets built. None of it takes much thought, it's just the sequence, and anyone who's opened more than a few shifts could do it half asleep.

The part that actually takes attention comes after. Dialling in, every morning, both the house coffee and whichever single origins are on. We check what the recipe was yesterday first, ratio, time, dose, yield, and build from there rather than starting from nothing. Coffee moves slightly day to day, the bag, the grinder, the water, how many days off roast it is, so yesterday's numbers are a starting point, not an answer.

We taste together as a team wherever we can. Partly because it keeps everyone aligned on what the coffee should taste like that day, and partly because it's how new people learn. You can't just tell someone what a good shot tastes like. You put a bad one and a good one in front of them, back to back, more than once, until they can tell the difference without being told. That takes a lot of repetition and a lot of coffee that never gets served.

Things occasionally go wrong that never make it past the espresso machine into anyone's cup. A machine won't fire up for no clear reason. One winter a pipe went overnight and we opened the door to water across the floor, mopped it up, and carried on. None of it is dramatic on its own, it's just what running two cafes for years actually involves.

By half seven, none of that is visible. The coffee's dialled in, the pastries are out, the room's lit properly. Someone walks in and orders a flat white. From their side of the counter, that's where the day starts.