How to stop running out of stock in a small café

Every café has a version of the same story. It’s Saturday, the queue is out of the door, and someone shouts that there’s no oat milk left. The person who noticed it was low on Thursday mentioned it to whoever was nearby, and that was the end of it.

Information can get lost between the person who sees the shelf and the person who places the order. Here’s a simple routine that helps the team turn a low-stock warning into the right order.

1. Decide what “low” means for each item

A par level is a target stock level. For a shop that orders on a fixed schedule, use it as an order-up-to target: enough stock on hand plus confirmed incoming stock to cover demand until the following order can arrive. You don’t need one for every item in the building, only the ones that hurt when they run out: milks, coffee beans, cups and lids, the bestselling bake.

Start with recent daily use, the time between order reviews, your supplier’s lead time and a busy-day buffer. Keep the unit consistent: bottles, cases or kilograms. Allow for shelf life and storage space, and adjust the target as you learn what sells.

Worked example: how many bottles of oat milk should you order?

This is an illustrative calculation, not a customer result. Suppose you use 6 bottles a day, review orders every 3 days, wait 1 day for delivery and hold a 6-bottle buffer.

Never order a negative quantity: if stock position already meets the target, the suggested order is zero. Check that incoming stock will arrive before you need it, then adjust for pack sizes, opening days and unusual demand. A separate reorder warning covers use during lead time plus the buffer: here, 1 × 6 + 6 = 12 bottles. Reaching it is a prompt to review stock and delivery timing between orders, not to place a duplicate order automatically.

2. Make reporting “we’re low” take five seconds

If telling the manager means finding a pen, a notebook and the right page, it won’t happen during a rush. The report has to be quicker than remembering to mention it later.

• Keep one place for low-stock notes, not a mix of WhatsApp, sticky notes and memory.
• Let anyone on shift add to it, not just the manager.
• If two people report the same thing, count it as one item with two reports, not two separate orders.

3. Do a short, regular count of the items that matter

A full stocktake is a job for month end. What stops weekend shortages is a five-minute count of ten or fifteen key items, on the same day every week, ideally the day before you order. Give it a fixed slot on the rota so it isn’t the thing that gets dropped when the shop is busy.

4. Turn the list into an order, by supplier

A list of low items is only useful once it’s grouped by who you buy it from. Before you ring or email a supplier, you want everything you need from them in one place, so you place one order instead of three.

5. Close the loop when the delivery arrives

When the delivery comes in, tick off what arrived against what was reported. Anything still missing goes straight back on the list. This is the step most systems skip, and it’s why the same item runs out twice in a month.

How Unpickle handles it

In Unpickle, staff tap Running low on their phone and pick the item. Repeat reports merge into one, managers get a notification, and the shopping list groups everything by supplier. Weekly stock counts can be set up as a repeating job with a line per product, and delivery check-in helps the team close the loop on what arrived. Use the template to plan quantities and Unpickle to keep the team’s daily stock reports together.

See how stock reporting fits into Unpickle’s café management software, and use the delivery checking routine to catch missing items before they cause another shortage.

Try it free for 30 days, no card required.