Wash all your unnecessary dishes ASAP and shut down and clean one mastrena, an hour to closing pour your teas and iced coffee into trenta cups, and restock constantly.

Dude we would finish closing 15 minutes early consistently. Like lock the doors and be done in 15 minutes. The key is to do literally everything you can do before close before close and then count the money and everything after close and be done.

When I used to close I would try to do "today, tomorrow, today".

First, finish any daily tasks not yet completed so far. If it's busy, put your strongest barista(s) on bar and send someone else to task. If it's slower, let your less-strong people build up their skills.

Then, prep everything for tomorrow. Make whip creams, do your pull, take and clean any equipment you don't need at night. Clean one bar completely, then swap over parts with the other bar and clean those as well. You can swap parts from one bar to the other. You can use a big paper filter to keep your grounds drawer mostly clean so you don't end up having to scrub it extensively, a quick sanitize at the end of the night will be fine. Do your floors and any deep clean here if you can. If you are slow enough, you can close one bar/station and completely turn it over. Do as many dishes as you can take off the floor here. You can be on the floor for a while here until they finish, then do your pull. For the sake of time, do your pull \*before\* your trash run unless there is literally no space. One trash run is faster than two. *Get through as many of these sort of tasks as possible before you lose your pre-closer.*

Then finish today's last tasks near/after close. Stock/restock your paper/disposable goods, pack the fridge trays with sandwiches and breads and things. Stock and merchandise your sales items. Clean any last pitchers, touch-up and run the last bar parts you were using through the sanitizer. *Your goal is to have your post-close tasks as only those dishes that were in active use at close, money counting, and any minor things like a lobby-pass and last small trash run.*

No it’s definitely possible to be out on time or even early. The keyword here is PRECLOSE. Pre close everything. If you leave it all to after close you will be there late. For your SSV duties make it so you only have to drop your top 2 tills after close (I know some managers won’t allow you to drop bottom drawers but ours does) I even fill out my deposit bag info and the receipt book before close so all I literally do when we lock the doors is count 2 tills, do my safe count, drop the deposit bag and get out of there. Making sure you’re delegating the closing tasks throughout the shift is also key. Some baristas are stronger closers than others. Some need more guidance. I like to personally do the closing prep and stocking leading up to close so then all the baristas need to worry about is dishes, cleaning duties, and serving customers. Our store is busy first thing in the morning so we can’t leave things empty or not prepped. When we have a busier evening I will ask a barista if they want me to double bar so one of them can go wash dishes and preclose. Or Vice versa. I like to ask people what they feel like doing because when I was a barista I felt like I was doing a lot of the same stuff and like I was doing more work then others.

May not apply if you're not a drive store, but from what I have noticed, my shifts usually close all of the tills but dtr. So if someone orders in cafe, we just ring them up in the drive thru. We also being in the tip jars and do those before close. You got this!

SSV that closes 2-3 nights a week, we start our preclose at 2-3 depending on what kind of day it is, like a happy hour or weekend day, then around 6, I’ll get my pull done, and I’ll usually count the safe and drop drawers we don’t use before we close, we normally close at 10 on weekdays and 10:30 on weekends, and if there’s a count I get that done early in the day, like the stuff that can be counted that way I don’t have to do that at close too, I usually submit it around 9:30-10 depending on the day, and then I drop cafe like 10 mins before we close. That way at 10-10:30 I can finalize the deposit, count the dt and help with anything that needs to be done.

Don’t worry you’ll get a rhythm and pattern down!!!!