Maybe I’m biased because I’m a closer and yes, I agree, if I walk into all that, I’ll be pissed no matter what time of day. Does it help (not excuse) at all by saying that they had Happy Hour yesterday?

Most managers are not closers, and they spend most of the time on admin instead of actually working.

I did a 2-person close with my SM once, and he sat in the back 6 out of 8 hours of the shift on the computer while I was struggling to keep up.

I’m the regular closer and it physically pains me if I can’t even do the bare minimum. From 4-8pm we run on 3 people (2 partners and an SSV), so if it gets super busy then yeah it’s hard to get everything done. If poor time management is your closers’ issue then the least they can do is stock ice and lids/cups. If I don’t have time to prep stuff I always make sure to bring out what they’ll need in the morning and put it on the counter where they can easily make it. It’s not ideal but it’s the only thing I can do for the morning people when the evening gets so shitty

You get more staff in the morning that the night crew does, usually.
I think you should close and see what it’s really like, especially during a happy hour, before jumping to the conclusion that they didn’t even try.

As a barista who opens and closes (I know right? Rare that someone does both), if it isn’t a good close, it won’t be a good morning. However, if it’s a great close, it’ll be a very very easy opening. Honestly, closers ran so that openers could walk. I can understand that some nights it gets absolutely hectic and the close isn’t as good as it could be because of that, but I get where you’re coming from.

It deffo sucks when restock/backups didnt get done but having a happy hour yesterday made it astronomically hard to get anything done. My store would’ve had a shit close except we had clean play last night which meant we were able to get everything done ONLY because we were working until midnight.

It was happy hour.

We all know happy hour was yesterday. OP is talking about a PATTERN of closers in his/her store failing to set up the morning for success. It's a valid problem that your manager should be addressing.

As a closer who opened for the first year of my Starbucks career let me say this. Teas should not be prepped the night before, you have thirty minutes to wash all the tea pitchers and air dry them, if a tea is put into a tea pitcher with even a few droplets of water and gets wet it’s a health cod violation to let it sit over night like that (I was a shift at Teavana so this one was really important for us). I don’t know how it if for your store but switching out containers for sauces needs to be done every 24 hours regardless and is usually easier in the morning when you have an hour of almost dead silence till peak and not 30 minutes with only two-three people to close a whole store. The only thing a closer can really help you with prep wise is making mocha for you and making all your wips. I would suggest talking to your sm about having more of the 24 hour shelf life stuff being done during your mid if it’s that difficult for you and the closers.

Oh then yeah they could definitely prep at least one set for you guys. If your a shift I’d try and talk to your manager about your needs in the morning and what’s not working for you guys. Your morning numbers are what really make or breaks the day but maybe you guys aren’t appropriately staffed for morning and peak? If your a barista you could also try doing that, but you may have to rely more on your shiftleads to back you up and really drive it home. And if you really want to try and fix it, request like a week or two of closing shifts and show the other closers how to properly set you up in the morning.