Night shift at a coffee shop

[rheasilvia]

Setting:My character is working a late night shift at a coffee shop open around the clock, in an urban fantasy setting most comparable to present-day central Europe (though US or Canada info would also be extremely helpful). The coffee shop is not downtown, but is located in a fairly central location close to the university, and many students live

Comments

[contrariwise]

US experience here: You'll likely get a rush of people around whenever the nearby bars close. Same if there's a movie theater nearby, or a club. If public transportation slows or stops at a certain time, you'll get people nursing a coffee while they wait for the first morning bus or train. If you get a lot of university traffic, you'll see an uptick in customers staying late to study during finals. You'll also see a drop in customers during school breaks. If you bake your baked goods on site, the baker(s) come in early--3-4 in the morning--to start the AM bake. If you get deliveries instead, they might come around 5-7 in the morning.

Shifts get scheduled to cover the busiest times. It would not be unusual to have several hours as the only person on shift. There'll probably be a safe in a back room, with a slot opening so staff can drop money bags in, but not open the safe itself. Usually money will get dropped when there's a shift change, so there's not a lot of money in the cash register at any given time.

Whether people could take unsold baked goods would be up to the owner or manager. Some would be cool with it, others not so cool. Usually any unsold goods would have to be inventoried as unsold regardless of what happens to them, so decisions can be made about how much to make next time, and what ingredients need to be purchased, etc. Often they might be sold at a discount and marked 'day old', or given away to a food bank. If your shop has a hardass boss, they might get really uptight or even paranoid about staff taking baked goods.

[rheasilvia]

Oooh, so much traffic info! This is great, and exactly what I needed to know. I'll have to work out when a good quiet time would be, but 2 to 3 AM (outside of finals) is looking good - somewhat after the movie theater's late movies, but before the bars close. I'm thinking public transport slows somewhat between 1 and 4 AM, so there'll also be some people waiting for the next bus or train. It'll be great to have my character thinking about some of this.

The safe with the slot is a great detail that I would never have thought of! Thank you very much, this is all extremely useful.

[kdorian]

I'm going to second the 'after the bar close rush'. Some people are going to want a cup of coffee to make them more alert, or just want to give themselves a little more sober-up time before they drive home.

Also, a while (30 to 45 minutes) before the public transit morning commute really starts up; depending on when that happens. It first early-morning 'rush' will probably be 2-3 hours before the period that most people think of as the morning commute time.