Does coffee shop staffing come down to labor cost?

A tea shop employee in China wore a sign asking customers not to talk during drink preparation, saying conversation slows the work and can draw criticism from a manager. The photo spread online and triggered debate. Workers say the cause is staffing: many stores assign one person per shift, so employees handle ordering, brewing and handover alone during peak hours.

Self-service mini-program ordering is common, but staff note that extra requests and order notes still require attention. Labor cost is a central figure for anyone asking how much does it cost to open up a coffee shop?, since payroll shapes how many people cover a shift. The episode shows how thin staffing affects coffee for coffee shops and customer communication in daily operations.

Recently, a customer at a tea shop noticed an eye-catching large sign posted on the back of an employee who was busy making tea with their back turned. The sign said that customers should not talk to them, because answering would slow down the tea-making process and could also get them criticized by the store manager. After the photo was shared online, it quickly sparked heated discussion. Some found it novel and amusing, some pointed out grammatical errors, and others expressed confusion—given how common self-service ordering is now, why would this situation still occur? But workers revealed another reality: many stores, in order to cut labor costs, assign only one person to watch the store, and employees juggle multiple roles, leaving them truly unable to spare attention during peak hours. Behind this seemingly humorous note is the real conflict between staffing in the tea beverage industry and customer communication. Front Street Coffee invites you to take a look.

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Recently, when a customer was buying a drink at a tea shop, they noticed an employee with their back turned, concentrating on preparing drinks, with a large sign posted on their back that read: "Please don't talk to me. Answering you will affect my speed in making tea, and will also get me criticized by the store manager. Don't ask me, just do it for me, thank you very much."

This scene struck the customer as quite novel, so they took a photo and posted it on social media, not expecting it to attract a great deal of discussion among netizens. Some joked, "Sir: young man, what words are written on your back?" Some corrected, "There is no such word as 'you all' in this usage, please say 'you'." Others sighed and called it "the last stubbornness of a worker."

However, many people also felt confused when they saw this large sign. In their view, coffee shops and tea shops now basically all support self-service ordering through mini-programs. If consumers have additional needs, they can just leave a note when placing the order, and when they receive the pickup notification on their phone, they can go to the counter to collect the finished drink. The whole process may not require saying a single word to the staff.

Yet workers say the real situation is far less ideal than netizens imagine.

Because many tea shops currently, in order to control labor costs, often arrange only one person to watch the store, most employees have to shoulder multiple responsibilities alone. They must prepare ingredients, make drinks, and also act as store customer service, handling all kinds of pre-sale and after-sale issues. When they encounter especially enthusiastic customers, they may even have to chat along and provide emotional value.

But people's energy is ultimately limited. During peak order periods, many employees say they simply cannot make drinks while also being distracted by all kinds of questions from customers, delivery riders, and others. As a result, some employees

will stick a "Please don't talk to me" label on their backs when the store is flooded with orders, both explaining the current situation to customers who enter the store and sparing themselves from having to interrupt the work at hand in order to respond to customers.

In addition, some socially anxious people admit that they themselves are not good at dealing with people. Once they encounter certain people firing off questions and urging orders, they feel at a loss, which is why they came up with this method to reduce communication with strangers. In response, many netizens who feel the same way expressed complete understanding, and some even said they wanted to learn from the tea shop workers and put up a similar notice at their workstations to reduce unnecessary social interaction.

However, some netizens pointed out that this kind of "Please don't talk to me" large sign may on the surface seem like a measure employees are forced to take in pursuit of efficiency, but in essence it is "shifting the unreasonable working-hours conflict between boss and employee onto the relationship between employee and customer."

In addition, some people said that although the employee may feel that this large sign on their back can save a lot of trouble explaining to customers, in their view this practice leaves customers with a rather bad impression and may even drive some consumers away: "When I see this, I don't want to come to this store," "When I see this sign, I don't dare speak."

They said that workers each have their own difficulties, and the desire not to be disturbed while focusing on work is understandable, but perhaps another approach could be used, such as placing a notice board in front of the counter to solve the problem.

Image source: Internet

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