warehouse worker

general manager

kitchen manager

baker

team member

Kaldis Coffee Company

So here's the deal- Kaldi's is undeniably one of the most respected and professional specialty coffee companies in the midwest. Their coffee knowledge and development is impressive and innovative. For the most part, the people who work at Kaldi's are fun, understanding, and flexible. Building relationships with coworkers and guests is the main highlight of this job. 

However, if you expect to actually work in coffee, practice on bar, or become barista certified, this is not the job for you. In order to get any time on bar you have to repeatedly ask and nag to start your bar training. 

Another thing they fail to tell you upon hiring is that although you are hired for a specific position (e.g. FOH/Cashier), employees are almost always cross-trained, seemingly for management's benefit rather than the employee's. The issue with this is that they make it sound like they're cross training you simply to get you familiar with the establishment, or that this is just a stepping stone into a leadership role (E.g. Team Lead, Lead Barista). This is not the case. Instead of actually hiring prep cooks, line cooks, etc., they just make everyone be trained in BOH, so if they are short-staffed (which they almost always are), it saves them from having to actually find people who want to work in a kitchen. There were many cases in which people were scheduled BOH without fully trained to be back there. Would you want your food cooked by someone who doesn't know what they're doing? As long as there's a body on the schedule, it's good enough for them, even if you aren't trained or confident (but they will still nag you to keep ticket times low!). If you don't want to work in a kitchen, you have to set that boundary straight away. 

Perhaps the biggest con of this place is management and leadership. The location I worked at had three different general managers in less than a year; Two managers in the three months that I worked there. Leadership in this company is a complete mess. Many of the shift leads had this superiority complex in which they refused to do some of the lower-level work that desperately needed to be done. There was an attitude as if they were too good to do food runs, dishes, or talk to customers. I lost count of the amount of times where shift leads were standing around talking when there were plenty of tasks to be done. Many of the shift leads operate on pure emotion, are very passive-aggressive, and will take their stress out on you. Not to mention heavy favoritism and inconsistent standards for employees. Management will constantly nag you about 'labor' and cut you and your coworkers' hours or force you to take unpaid breaks, which screws over the people left over to close. Managers only care about profit (since they're the ones getting the bonus $ for keeping labor percentages low).  

Of course, all of this varies based on location, this was just my experience at the location I worked. For the most part, this was a fun job in and of itself, however the cons eventually outweigh the pros. 

If you love coffee this is a great place to work. Unlimited free coffee and a lot of education in coffee provided. I’ve held many positions at this company including being a GM. 

The GM life comes with a lot of compromises and the work life balance in unrealistic. There are some great leaders in this company who have really helped me grow. There have been others who should have never been leaders and those are the ones you tend to remember. Those who make you second guess how good you are your job and if you even want this job anymore. 

The pay is not worth the stress that is for certain. If you want a raise you better learn how to beg. Also speaking up for yourself is considered complaining in this company. If your viewpoint is not the same as the leadership then you are wrong. The wage they offer is definitely not enough to cover the cost of living.

I have learned a lot and I will take those lessons to the next career I pursue.

Kaldi's was a great place to come and learn new things for me. I moved through the ranks quickly because of my work ethic and willingness to learn. The jump to management was a large one because of the transition from hourly to salary. From there the work life balance was terrible and many unrealistic goals were set for me. While there was a format to earn a bonus quarterly, the goals for my store were such that I was never able to achieve any percent of said bonus even with making great improvement to the store's finances and function. 

That said, I was able to acquire new skills in managing people and learned a lot about how to run a business. These are things that have helped me grow as an individual and will aid me my future positions. 

My advice to working at Kaldi's, stay hourly as long as possible and when you switch to salary really think about what the job is actually worth.

Most of management was dissociate. Some where go getters made people feel great and take charge of problems that their employees couldn't solve, they were great always real, never changed up on you made sure they didn't play favourites. Then you had the ones that never tackle problems, always treated you like a child, never listen to problems never helped, always talking to you with that superiority complex. "Stay in your pay grade" talks. Not to mention we had a couple of racist hire ups that always blame the employees and never the rules they enforced that made it physically and mentally impossible to do anything. Placing more work on night crew and afternoon crew. Things where just everywhere and there was practically no steadiness. Weekends are the worst because no one wants to work weekends yet they are always busy and will hire anyone who works weekends.

I think overall Kaldi's is a great company, great coffee and food. They have pretty decent benefits and pay is not bad when it's busy and tips role in. 
I worked at a drive thru location I was there for one year before I was 'seperated from employment '. I find it very hard to get our opinions heard, despite all team meetings to talk about this.  It's hard to get in touch with someone when you need to. I had a bunch of problems with both the managers I had on my year there for very different problems. It got to a point where my only joy in working was my regular customers. 
I gave 2 week notice to leave the state for personal reasons, and was fired the day after for in my mind was a bogus reason. I am a fan of the cafe but I definitely have too many stories of working here to recommend working here. 

Worked for them for 5+ years and they pushed me out of my job during the Coronavirus epidemic, while on unemployment during the closing of my cafe they deactivated my work email and access to our scheduling program, telling me to, and I quote, "take the jobs being offered to me"... during an epidemic. Now, 4 weeks later they have now hiring signs up.

Please do not work for this company and please do not spend money at their cafes. They are taking this chance to hire and sweep all of their old baristas out and fill the cafe with new, lower paid, and overworked team members.


Kaldi's is a coffee shop, so there's always fast-paced work to be done. After tips, I actually got paid pretty well for working part-time as a college student. Unfortunately, they had unreasonable expectations about my work-life balance. I had requested 16-20 hours of work per week - enough to help me afford to enjoy life a bit while in college. I ended up working easily 30 hours a week, whether I was scheduled or I was "asked" to cover shifts last-minute, on top of a full college course load (of which they were aware). On top of that, I would frequently have to close and open back to back, getting off work around 12:30am and coming back in at 5:00am. Factoring in the 30-minute walk to and from work, I would end up regularly getting less than 3 hours of sleep a night.

I liked working here because where else in the food industry do you not have to work nights! Most Kaldi's cafes close before 5pm. The management team help me learn a lot about coffee and leadership. I'm an over achiever and continually asked tons of questions. everyone was very inclusive and the only time there were issues was when someone didn't want to pull their weight. Then they would complain, quit cause they didn't want to work and then complain some more on social media. The hardest part of the jobs was when it was slow because I love taking care of customers. Getting to know them and talking to them. Which was also the most enjoyable part of the job.

The people you work with are awesome, supportive, hardworking, and fun. Unfortunately, management is the complete opposite. Staffing is always short, training is minimal, and veteran staff end up overworked.

The attendance policy is harsh (Four sick call-outs and you’re fired, even with a doctor’s note), which is ridiculous for a food service job. Management is disrespectful, lazy, and constantly changes the rules. Promotions go to those who stroke egos, not those who actually do the work.

Most managers are hired in instead of promoted, and upper management ignores or gaslights staff concerns.

It's definitely not the worst place to work, but not the best. For a food service job that is not serving, they pay okay with tips, and they allow for flexible scheduling, which is nice. However, this job is not what you would think it is like to work at a coffee shop. While it is not as bad as Starbucks and they do have quality coffee, it is still a corporate environment and is fairly busy all the time. Also don't expect to immediately learn how to actually make espresso drinks, it takes forever for them to bar train and you have to constantly ask/be pushy about it. It gets real annoying. 

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Warehouse worker 3 salaries reported	$18.17 per hour
General manager 5 salaries reported	$53,400 per year
Kitchen manager 3 salaries reported	$20.00 per hour
Baker 2 salaries reported	$15.00 per hour
Team member 1 salary reported	$15.00 per hour

Working at Kaldi's Coffee Company: Company Overview and Reviews

Kaldi's Coffee Company

Kaldi's Coffee Company Ratings

Popular jobs at Kaldi's Coffee Company

Salary Satisfaction

Job Seeker Tools

Employer Tools

Browse

Stay Connected