Owner's Guide
How much inventory should a coffee shop keep?
Short answer: enough to never 86 a drink, never freeze cash, and never bin a bag of beans past peak. Here's the long answer — with formulas, par levels and the trade-offs nobody tells new owners about.
The one formula every owner needs
The par-level formula is dead simple:
Par level = average daily usage × days between deliveries × safety factor (1.2–1.4)
Example: you use 1.4kg of espresso blend per day, deliveries land Mon/Thu (3-day gap), safety factor 1.25 → par = 1.4 × 3 × 1.25 = 5.25kg.
Days on hand by category (2026 benchmarks)
- Espresso beans: 7–10 days. Past 14 days off roast you taste the loss.
- Filter / batch beans: 3–5 days. Lower volume, higher freshness sensitivity.
- Dairy & oat milk: 2–3 days. Daily deliveries always beat freezer hacks.
- Syrups: 14–21 days. Long shelf life, but watch for slow movers killing menu real estate.
- Pastries: 0–1 days. Bake daily or partner with a bakery; same-day or it's waste.
- Packaging (cups, lids, sleeves): 14–21 days. Bulk pricing wins here.
- Tea: 30–60 days. Tea is the only place over-ordering doesn't punish you.
The cash cost of "just in case"
Every extra week of inventory ties up roughly 1.5–2.5% of monthly revenue in cash. On a $50k/month café, two weeks of bloat = $1,500 sitting on shelves instead of in your account. That's the espresso machine repair fund, the marketing budget, and the owner-pays-themselves Friday — all stuck on a back-of-house rack.
Five rules to keep inventory tight
- Count weekly, same time. Sunday close, every SKU, no exceptions.
- Reorder Monday morning. One consolidated order per supplier — fewer mistakes.
- Recalculate par monthly. Usage shifts with seasons; pars should too.
- Track waste at the bin. If you don't measure it, you'll order around it.
- Kill slow SKUs ruthlessly. If a syrup hasn't moved in 60 days, it's a candle.