Favorite Memory: In Charge
FAVORITE MEMORIES FROM YEAR TWO
In celebration of our birthday, we’re asking a fun question to our Tala community: what’s your favorite memory of the cafe? We’re reminiscing about the times shared, coffees tried and people met. To answer this question we’re having different people from the Tala team write their response each day. Follow along to hear some of our highlights from this second year together. You’ll hear about life on the other side of the counter, life after hours, before hours, and lots of fun things that happen in and around the cafe. You’ll hear highlights and memorable moments as well as lessons and reflections. Thanks for following along with us.
Next up: In Charge by Elizabeth. Elizabeth was actually our very first hire at Tala. Liz, as we mostly refer to her here, attends Oxford University in England, where she studies theology. She would be angry with me for bragging about her, though (sorry Liz). In spite of living so far away, she is a consistent contributor to Tala, always working when she returns for breaks, and staying connected even while she’s gone. More than once I’ve walked into the back room to find one of the team members on break FaceTiming Liz in Oxford. We all miss her dearly and the piece she brings to the Tala family. With COVID, she’s had to remain in England longer than planned, and we’re so sad to miss her during our birthday week. But as a continuing—though distant—member of the team, we’re happy to hear from her about her favorite memories at Tala.
In Charge
Guest post by Elizabeth
I’ve spent the last eight-ish months about 3,000 miles away from Highwood due to the COVID situation. If the whole virus thing hadn’t happened, I’d probably be in the café right now—either on shift or doing some academic work or playing a card game. Being an ocean away from Illinois family and friends during a major world crisis has been an …interesting… experience, and I’ve learned a lot about myself, about living alone, and about the importance of community. I miss my bosses, co-workers, regulars, and the whole café community very much and I’ll be celebrating year two of the café with y’all from across the pond.
Working at Tala has been one of the best opportunities and it’s been very sad not to have been around much for the second year of the Tala café. There are many things I miss about being a barista—getting up at 4:30 for the morning shifts and arriving early to hang out with Erin before we open the shop, random weekday morning rushes, doing 16 million dishes, having to make whipped cream when there’s a line of other drinks waiting to be made, seeing a regular pull up and having their drink ready before they are even up at the counter, being super in-sync with the bar-back, and drinking our sweet, beautiful coffees. But probably what I miss most about Tala is best illustrated by what is also my favorite memory from year two of the café.
Last September I worked a weekday afternoon shift with my co-worker and dear friend Marcus. I had only recently passed my barista exam and the shift supervisor test, meaning I could be in charge on a shift. I had worked plenty of barista shifts so felt comfortable doing all those things, but until that point I had always worked with someone who was either an owner or had more experience working in coffee. Marcus was still a pretty recent hire, so this was the first shift where I would really be the one in charge of dealing with anything that came up. I was nervous (did they really trust some teenager to handle things??), but determined to have a great shift, and, mostly determined to not have to call Stefan and tell him something had gone terribly, terribly wrong. Fortunately, nothing went very wrong, but several little problems did crop up over our shift. The drip coffee machine stopped working. Not great. But I got it working again pretty quickly! (Real helpful when instructions are on the machine itself…). At another point the power went out, which was not something I’d had to deal with before, but again, we were able to keep everything running smoothly. Towards the end of the shift I think we were running out of oat milk or something and I was a bit stressed about that. When the shift was over, I felt so accomplished because not only had I been in charge of the café for a few hours without letting it burn down, but when little things did go wrong, I was able to deal with them and not get flustered.
This was for a few reasons. First, I’d spent a long amount of time at that point learning from the best. Keith, Joanna, and Stefan especially, had taught me the ins and outs of being a good barista—from interacting with customers to changing the cold-brew kegs. Second, I had a great teammate! Marcus was so amazing on that shift and kept encouraging me which helped me feel more confident. The same is true for everyone who works at Tala. That’s what I miss most about the café—even when things are a bit stressful or something has gone wrong or there’s a massive rush out of nowhere, I know I can count on the team. That shift last September was so great because the Tala family is so great. The café is a great place because it was made and is cared for by great people. I miss just hanging out with the Tala family at our little home on Green Bay, and I am very much looking forward to doing that again (hopefully) soon. Here’s to many more years in Highwood!
What’s your favorite memory?
We want to hear your favorite memories at Tala! This week, we’re giving away a $200 gift card to one lucky individual who tells us their favorite memory. Full details are available below—make sure you post about your memory this week to be entered to win!