What Do Manner Baristas Say About Coffee After Lunch Shifts?

Manner baristas have taken to social media to describe running stores alone through promotional rush periods, with no time to eat or use the restroom, and some have resigned. Several say regular customers showed more consideration than company rules did, including one who offered to watch the store so a barista could take a coffee after lunch break.

Workers also report being scheduled for more than 60 hours a week with no days off. Customers, meanwhile, arrive to find no staff on site and cannot cancel or modify orders. A specialty coffee brand that expanded quickly on capital is now confronting a staffing gap that its scheduling practices and its hiring pipeline both have to address.

Recently on social media, complaints from Manner baristas have been growing louder. Many current or former employees have posted that even during promotional rush periods, stores are only staffed by one person, making it difficult for baristas to even eat or use the restroom, and some ultimately choose to leave. What is striking is that several baristas say the concern shown by regular customers feels warmer than the company's rules. At the same time, consumers frequently encounter the awkward situation of arriving at a store to find no one there and being unable to cancel or modify orders. From high-value specialty coffee to rapid expansion driven by capital, Manner's staffing gap is gradually coming to the surface. This article compiles complaints from multiple sources, presenting both the barista and customer perspectives.

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Recently, photos of "resignation boxes" bearing the Manner logo have appeared with increasing frequency on social media. Many baristas have chosen to post online, pointing directly at serious problems with Manner's internal scheduling and management — even during promotional campaigns and order surges, stores still leave a single barista to hold things down alone, and when it gets busy there is not even time to eat or go to the restroom, leaving them with no choice but to submit their resignation.

On Xiaohongshu, a netizen claiming to be a current Manner employee posted with emotion: "Even Manner customers are more humane than the company." This barista described being alone in the store that day when, around noon, a regular customer took the initiative to ask whether they had eaten and offered to keep an eye on the store so they could go have lunch first.

Another worker likewise complained that Manner's management is hard to accept. This barista posted a few days ago that they had been forcibly scheduled for more than 60 hours of work a week, with no days off at all.

These complaints quickly struck a chord with many Manner employees, who agreed and sympathized in the comments and shared their own "miserable scenes" while on duty. Regarding Manner's unreasonable scheduling of "one person running one store," one netizen summed it up: "Manner is the company I've encountered so far where employees and store managers are united in cursing the boss together, and the human warmth actually comes from between employees and between customers."

In fact, it is not only Manner baristas who complain about "not enough staff," but also consumers who arrive at the store after ordering only to find it empty. There are quite a lot of complaints online about "not being able to find a Manner barista," such as "Manner baristas must be the ones who love going to the restroom the most!", "If the store is run like this, maybe just don't open it," and "Manner's staff have it rough."

Not long ago, a netizen in Beijing posted a complaint about Manner: after placing an order and arriving at the store to pick up coffee, they only saw a note left by the barista saying "went to the restroom." However, after waiting more than ten minutes, the barista still had not returned, the mini-program did not support order cancellation, and the phone could not be reached. The netizen said that for such a large chain brand, the service experience was utterly speechless.

Regarding Manner's barista shortage, Coffee Workshop has mentioned in previous articles that even during promotional order surges, many stores still arrange only one barista on duty, handling all the various tasks in the store. The high-intensity work not only tests the barista's state of mind, but even customers coming to pick up coffee have begun to sympathize with these workers fighting alone behind the bar.

Since the brand was founded, many people have become "loyal fans" of Manner. Besides valuing its high-value specialty coffee, they are drawn even more by the baristas' professional and thoughtful service. A greeting with a smile, latte art on a custom cup, a friendly farewell — "popular baristas" inject more warmth into this ordinary drink and firmly capture batch after batch of customers who come to "grab a coffee."

However, in recent years, with the injection of capital, Manner has also begun to find itself "not entirely its own master," continuously accelerating its pace of expansion and opening branches in cities everywhere. The menu is frequently updated, and it has year-round high-profile collaborations with other brands, launching fan-pampering activities such as free merchandise and perks, keeping the brand's popularity rising.

In order to adapt to capital's demands, Manner has had to adjust its original "laid-back" rhythm and increasingly "follow the crowd." While madly rolling out new products, it also compresses costs to achieve genuine high value. Perhaps it is precisely as business grows hotter that Manner's staffing shortage problem has gradually been exposed.

Image source: Internet

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The above content is compiled by CoffeeHunters, a coffee news website.