shift leader

barista

store manager

assistant store manager

route sales representative

Peets Coffee & Tea

Peets Coffee was an interesting job to say the least. I had the opportunity to work in two unique environments and experience different aspects of each. I began working in Roseville, CA and transferred to another location   in Sacramento, right outside midtown. A typical day in Roseville was just trying to keep up with pace of work required , as we were one of the top 10 profiting stores in the whole country. This is where I learned what impeccable and intimate customer service was about. We routinely had lines to the back of the store and I quickly learned how to provide people with a genuine-love filled experience in under 1-2 minutes per transaction. I had amazing leaders at all my locations, who consistently pushed me to be the best version of myself I could be. Each day generally consisted of serving pastries, warming breakfast good, and providing lovingly made coffee/tea beverages to our customers. 

The nature of coffee shops can be brutal for empaths as there were often homeless and transients who would take shelter inside the store, just seeking a warm cup of water and a moment of respite from the elements outside the doors. This was the most challenging part of the job for me as I have no negative disposition to the less fortunate. I know what it's like to not have a home and be down on your luck, so I always had a special place in my heart for these people. Unfortunately our higher end customer base saw them in a less....caring light. The management was sick of dealing with them and I slowly witnessed a culture develop around viewing them as an impediment to sales. Unfortunately many of my coworkers weren't very 'street smart' and would put themselves into precarious situations by handling these less financially gifted customers with little tact. It was hard for me to be a part of and watch. This, coupled with job requirements that put me at risk (cleaning up feces, drug needles,  dealing with racist customers etc) without reciprocation in pay rate slowly drove me away from working at Peets. As much as I loved coffee and connecting with customers, I just couldn't handle the lack of pay for what I was being asked to do, which was compromise my morals and put myself at risk. 

This didn't define my experience at Peet's though. The most enjoyable part of the job was connecting with customers,  especially older folks. I love to change people's expectations with my actions and my character, as I have dreads and a more 'urban' style, but these are expressions of my pride in being African-American. I loved connecting with people from different ethnic, social, and financial backgrounds as these connections allowed me to investigate the commonalities present in all humans regardless of racial/socioeconomic status. I take great pleasure in finding the common thread by which to love in a more genuine and connected way. This job presented this as both a challenge and an opportunity constantly. The stories I heard, the things I learned about people, and the opportunities to love people more fully, cannot be exchanged for anything. I stayed at this job longer than any other for this exact reason.

I worked the closing shifts for 8 months at the Roseville location, and a 1 1/2 yrs at a San Jose location. I thought the management style would differ from location to location, but it doesn't. In fact, up here, it's worse, and HR will not help with keeping pay for transfers. When I transfered, I went back to the same pay I received when I was first hired in San Jose.

On a typical day in Roseville, we were understaffed. Consistently understaffed with lines to or sometimes out the door, which meant myself and the two other closers had to choose between cleanliness and addressing customers.

There was never enough time to clean everything, and there was always a thick layer of milk on the counters behind the bar. Powders were everywhere. Milks never had caps. 2% was constantly left on the counter, as were non-dairies. I dedicated a half an hour at the start of my shift scrubbing out milk from the fridges every day, and the rest of the night scrambling to find lids to cap everything. If I didn't work for a day, the mess was noticeable. I brought it to the attention of both the ASM and SM, and neither seemed to care, because they "always did it that way". When health inspectors came, they would crack down on cleanliness, then immediately stop.

The Roseville location deals with a lot of racism, and unfortunately, I had to deal with it firsthand. A specific customer insisted on using a very racist name as his own, which was offensive on a deeply personal level for me. When I asked the ASM to address it, she didn't say a word. She let it slide. I had to bring it to her attention that it's her job to stand up for her employees, and to say nothing is the equivalent of saying it's okay. This issue was escalated to HR, but it never came to a resolution.

Come the COVID-19 awareness, this company did not offer paid time off for those who fell ill during the cusp of enacting quarantine. Hours were cut drastically. When I was sick, they offered me a site to ask for monetary assistance for the hours I missed, but upon further inspection, the site is put together by workers' donations, not company donations, to help other workers. It was created to help those who cannot afford their healthcare with their job, or cannot work due to disease. It wasn't financially prepared to help with people like myself who fell ill at the beginning of the pandemic. (this information is on a public domain, which is in no way privatised by the company, seeing as it was created by employees for employees.)

Peet's has a long and rich history and has done incredible work to support quality coffees and teas in the world, and to provide customers with the world's best products.

However, the company pays lip service to being a "training organization" and has at tiny training department. Field training is a job duty of store leaders who are themselves poorly and under-trained. There are few labor hours allowed to train staff; theoretically each new hire comes with 40 "training hours" but somehow those mysteriously get gobbled up into regular hours. District managers spend most of their time yelling at their store managers about overspending labor budgets.

Like many retailers labor is a top cost and Peet's utilizes software to schedule staff to the quarter hour. Staff do not get consistent or reliable schedules, which they hate and which lowers morale; very few retail staff, let alone managers, make it to the one year mark, let alone longer. The software (known as Kronos; look for a news story about it in the NY Times within the past year) is the bane of retail managers.

You can move up quickly if you have a lot of stores your district, due to the abovementioned churn in all levels of staff. This churn is not good, by the way.

Peet's apparently has a very large marketing department that those of us in the field try to figure out what they do. All marketing efforts apparently target current customers; for instance, those who have already come in and purchased something can get a free beverage by signing up to be on the email list. We have never seen a marketing effort designed to attract new customers. (Peet's for a long time considered itself a "cult" brand; hopefully the new CEO will change this up.)

Peet's is truly committed to its quality and this is a good thing that we all do respect.

Proceed with caution, as someone else says. As a retail associate you will receive minimal training, low pay, have high expectations from management to know all about many kinds of coffees and teas as well as be a strong sales person, and get no sick days. However there is so much turnover if you stick with it you can move ahead easily. You might just become the best store manager ever!

And I may add: staff are also responsible for keeping the store spotlessly clean. No overnight cleaning companies for Peet's!

It can be an enjoyable place to work if you have a good team, but overall no one is paid enough to be doing this job. They maintain that they are not a minimum wage company but they're just barely paying above the minimum wage. With the increases in minimum wage in the area, this means that the staff is getting paid more, which is a good thing but the leadership wages are stagnant and annual raises are minuscule. Shift leaders are making close to Assistant Manager wages and really only the Store Managers make a livable wage in the SF Bay Area if you are a single person trying to live alone.

Peet's pushes the idea that they are a high-end coffee shop but continues to implement ideologies that are more in line with fast-casual corporations. Other third wave coffee companies pay higher wages to their staff and have better hours. 

The last few years there have been considerable changes in management as well as high turnover. It seemed like there were just a bunch of moments when someone should have stopped to say "wait, is this a good idea?" and then the retail staff gets the fallout. 

Typical corporate bottom line policies to increase productivity while cutting labor and pleasing even the most terrible of customers; I can't say this is just Peet's but corporate retail in general, but the customer is not always right. 

Additionally, there is no oversight on the Store Managers other than their District Leaders who never try to get any feedback from the staff if the manager is performing well on paper. Assumptions that everyone is happy are made without ever really finding out.

Sick? Good luck trying to call out and not have someone try to make you feel guilty even though you have plenty of sick time especially if you are a Shift Leader or Assistant Manager. Instead, you'll have to hope that someone can cover your shift and you can cover theirs otherwise you're going to work sick. 

If you can charm your bosses, you'll make your way up the ladder regardless if you can do the job or not. I've seen and trained countless people both hired and promoted internally talk the talk and then fail when it comes to actually doing the job. 

I could go on and on. I guess I keep hoping for better or maybe I'm just stubborn, but there's a reason you don't see Peet's showing up on lists for being a great place to work.

Peets as a company had a lackluster and frankly insulting response to the covid pandemic. We received "premium pay" for the first three weeks of the pandemic and now at the end of the year a "bonus" which is just a small tax write off for them. Upper management is incompetent and makes employees jobs difficult for very little pay. They have no concern for employees safety and have repeatedly ignored store managers feedback on how to make their employees feel more safe at work. Customers frequently ignore covid precautions such as store capacity and keeping their mask on and face no consequences for it. Also the customers are worse than anywhere else I have ever worked, but the company will always take the customers side and then take no responsibility when an employee tests positive for covid.

The "craft" beverages we supposedly serve are made from the cheapest ingredients and corporate puts an emphasis on making the drinks quickly rather than carefully. The quality of your work does not matter.

The pay is barely above minimum wage and don't expect to be rewarded for your loyalty because you will only receive a raise of 5 or 10 cents a year if at all. Sometimes the company just conveniently forgets to increase your wages after the raise you were supposedly supposed to get and the bonus you were promised for referring a new employee? We might get around to it someday (they never did).

Managers with no coffee experience and no leadership skills are allowed to manage stores completely unchecked and delegate their responsibilities to employees, blatantly breaking rules with no consequences. Health codes and safety rules are also frequently ignored and display food has been found left out long enough to attract maggots. When these issues have been brought to the attention of upper management, nothing is done about it.

Overall, if you work here just understand that upper management doesn't care about you, your work, or your effort and you will see the effects of it in your average work day. 


Depending on which gate you work on, it's just a busy coffee shop. Literally don't work here unless you live like RIGHT NEAR THE AIR PORT. With travel on the tube in, parking, walking through gates, yeah the tips are a little higher, just because there is more people, but unless you were like on of my coworkers who did not drive and lived right across the street, the gas isn't' worth ANY job at the air port. It's too hard to get into, and some days are CRAZY BUSY who wants to commute into a regular coffee job at 3 a.m. man!! No way! I loved co workers so I stayed so long, over a year, and this job is where I was when the pandemic hit, the air port. It was crazy, so I did not go back, I was scared of travel for like, since yesterday. They have a great hiring manager and managers, that's the secret to ANYTHING because the job is just cashiering but it's still hard, all customer service, food service jobs are hard, people can't just go go go, it's doesn't happen, they burn out, and the air port will SPEED that up. They should offer higher pay a little bit and get the right folks in there and you wouldn't have any turn over, people stay at jobs because of they're co workers, all the jobs are the same, commuting, traveling, selling something, money, it's all the same, you stay for something, something works for them so find out what it is for the people that are working there and find people as close as you can to why that will work. Driving and parking into the air port to work feels so intense, I to this day, never enjoy being around that many people. Commuting into any job that is on a gate, inside the air port, those people should all be just thanked every day, it's really hard, and the pay isn't any better than a local job in town you could get and save gas or walk. 

Depending on manager, work can be quite flexible and doable if going to school or working another job. Culture is cool, and benefits seem solid. 10 minute breaks are too short, I believe they should be 15 minute breaks as rushes can be pretty exhausting even for the outgoing people. 

One major change that could and should be implemented is having an additional person to close as opposed to limiting to the bare minimum for closing. Opening and morning shifts have between 4-6 people, would be nice for closing shifts to have 3-4 people as opposed to 2-3 depending on the location. Would definitely take some stress off. 

If you enjoy coffee and enough business to keep you busy and trying new things, especially coffee related, then this is an ideal job. Shifts can vary from 4 hours to 7-8 hours depending on the role and day. Except lots of coffee tastings and questions from customers about coffee notes and beverages on the menu - better to be prepared and try everything out! If you're expecting to have weekends off, may be tricky, or many not be accommodated. Even part time positions will require about 4-5 days a week, so speak up about your availability if you are not completely open!

If the team and vibe are right, expect lots of fun and shifts to fly by. Teamwork makes the dream work! I enjoyed my time with the company despite some tiring and demanding moments. I had so much coffee and figured out a lot of what tastes good and what doesn't taste good in a beverage, and how certain things may be catered to customers.

Don't be afraid to speak up for yourself and communicate with your team, and your manager! I recommend this job to outgoing people, and even the quiet coffee lovers. It's a great stepping stone into the world of coffee.

Loved my job and the people I worked with, including my manager. I had a lot of fun learning how to make drinks and I also learned a lot about customer service dos and don'ts. It was probably the most fun I have ever had working. It was also the most valuable job that I have ever had based on the personal and professional growth I was able to obtain.

My job consisted of basically being a bartender. The difference was that I mixed and poured coffee instead of alcohol. I was also responsible for keeping the store stocked and tidy, in addition to selling beans and hardware. I had and met sales goals frequently for the retail end of my position, and learned how to make customers happy while I made drinks and took orders on the service end of it.

The hardest part of my job was the hardest part of any customer service job, and that is the customer service when things get much more heated than they need to be. That, however, was also a learning experience, and it taught me how to read body language before things got out of hand over a simple cup of coffee It also taught me to never underestimate the power of a free drink when they get out of hand despite your best efforts.

Lots of people come into Peet's specifically for their dark brew and coffee beans, since it's their specialty. Starting as early as 5 AM in the morning, you'll get customers wanting just a simple brew. Morning shifts are 100% guaranteed to get you smelling of strong dark coffee all day as you grind beans for the regular coffee, brew huge vats of coffee and pull espresso shots. Nights consist of a lot cleaning up, restocking and maintenance.

I learned to better my craft, both in identifying what makes a better cup of joe, steaming hot milk for lattes and cappuccinos, heck- even just straight up making better lattes and cappuccinos, learning the real way to make a macchiato, etc.

Co-workers and Management all had their quirks and working style. It's only inevitable to come across people that you can't work very well with, or rub you the wrong way. Most of the time, they are very chill and respectful people. I loved every one of the them, including the manager(s) - I was hired by a different store manager than the one I ended up working alongside by the end.

Nothing was really "hard" about the job, but getting the steamed milk right always took a lot of concentration and practice. Heavy lifting was difficult for me because I have bad wrists. My favorite parts of the job was working on bar, and cleaning it/maintaining it. It not only catered to my love for making espresso drinks, but it also catered to my obsessive cleaning habits since it needed to stay sparkling clean at all times. At least, it should stay that way.

No, seriously. This company is a joke. 

I was baited and switched from the get-go, endured harassment and hostility, being overworked and disciplined for not being available at a moment's notice, turnover is incredibly high (80%+), there's a new VP/CEO every 6 months, and district and regional management care purely about numbers and completely don't care about anyone below the store manager.

My manager decided not to communicate anything from district meetings then throw me under the bus when there was an accountability check. The DL shows up for a few minutes to do a quick "customer path" then jets off to wherever. I saw the DL for like 5 minutes a month. You've only got 10 stores, what are you doing? 

Benefits actually got worse while I was there. We went from a HMO/PPO to HSA/FSA at the same cost to us but way high deductibles... like, pretty much covers getting hit by a bus and that's it.

There is no culture. They want employees to be called "Peetniks" but then customers are called that, too. It's weird. Perks are meh. Mostly for people at corporate... surprise. Getting into the whole free tuition program is a pain and a half, and I've heard of no one using it because it's just in name only, it seems.

Also, when I put in my notice, I suffered retaliation. Seriously.

So, if you like to work in a place where you mean nothing and like to get treated like a sack of garbage, work here.

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Shift leader 1026 salaries reported	$21.68 per hour
Barista 1126 salaries reported	$19.68 per hour
Store manager 119 salaries reported	$35.22 per hour
Assistant store manager 108 salaries reported	$28.57 per hour
Route sales representative 37 salaries reported	$24.07 per hour

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