Barista Cover Letter: Sample & How to Write (+Template)

Coffee shops can range from being bustling and exciting to quiet and cosy, sometimes all in one. The challenge is in putting yourself in a position to pick and choose cafés according to what works for you, a bad match will lead to a bad time.

This is where your barista cover letter (or covering letter) comes into the picture. An effective cover letter is one that gets your CV read. The one below is better than nine out of ten out there. Follow along with this article and yours can be at least as good. Get ready to receive more callbacks than ever before.

Save time and have a cover letter ready in no time. Pick a cover letter template, use pre-written suggestions, and have your cover letter ready in minutes.

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Looking for a different cover letter? See:

• Bartender Cover Letter
• Customer Service Cover Letter
• Lidl Cover Letter
• Receptionist Cover Letter
• Retail Cover Letter
• Sales Cover Letter
• Warehouse Operative Cover Letter

Haven't found what you're looking for? See all our cover letter examples.

Barista Cover Letter Sample 

Now that’s a perfect cover letter! Now, let’s see how to write yours.

1. Set out a barista cover letter header properly

You don’t just start writing specials or menu items on a blank chalkboard—it’s the same with your barista cover letter. A header is part and parcel of any business letter, and a cover letter for a barista job is no exception. Start by aligning to the right your name, postal address, email, and phone number.

Leave a line and type out the date of writing, always in the form ‘23rd May 2021’. Leave another line and align to the left the hiring manager or owner’s name, their job title, the full name of the café, restaurant or bar, and its postal address. Write postal addresses out just like you would when addressing an envelope.

Barista cover letter sample header

You can adjust every cover letter created in the builder to meet the job requirements. Choose the name of your profession and the company to which you’re applying, and the builder will automatically adapt the content for you. Create a cover letter faster than you ever thought possible and apply for the job in record time.

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2. Choose a good greeting for your barista cover letter

There’s a certain level of connection that’s expected when customers come in and approach the counter. A professional friendliness and decidedly human touch. It’s very similar with your barista cover letter: an effective cover letter will make its reader feel acknowledged by the writer and not just reduced to a job title.

The best way to address your reader, then, is in most cases with ‘Dear + their first name’. If the person you’re writing to is much more senior than you, or if the company has a more formal, traditional or posh feel, then you’re better off starting with ‘Dear + title + surname’. Better too formal than not formal enough.

This will generally force you into using gendered titles like ‘Mr’ and ‘Ms’, though. Always use ‘Ms’ for women unless you know for a fact that they prefer something else. Just as importantly, make doubly sure you’ve got the person’s sex right before committing to a ‘Ms’ or a ‘Mr’. Sounds silly, but mistakes happen.

Look around online, on the company website, Microsoft’s LinkedIn, social media, and elsewhere and see if you can pin down their sex. This will work ninety-nine times out of a hundred. In the extremely unlikely event that you can’t know for sure, call up, explain your situation, and ask. Simple and effective.

If that somehow doesn’t work, then go with ‘Dear + first name + surname’, it’s a little awkward but safe. For example, ‘Dear Morgan Forster’. So a person’s gender is simple enough to determine or skirt around, but what if you don’t even have a name to go on? How do you address your cover letter?

The first thing you should try, trite as it seems, is find out. Go back to the advert and make sure you didn’t overlook anything. Go to the company website, go to LinkedIn, call up, or drop by, and ask. If you’re local to the establishment to which you’re applying, then consider dropping by when it’s quiet.

In the extremely odd and rare case in which you simply can’t find out who will be reading your barista cover letter, address it to their job title—e.g. ‘Dear Front of House Manager’. If you can’t figure out their job title, then target the function they’ll be fulfilling during your recruitment—e.g. ‘Dear Hiring Manger’.

Barista cover letter sample salutation

3. Introduce yourself the right way

There’s so much more to being a good barista than just pouring x number of coffees an hour. Your personality and particular background are a big part of it. Use the opening paragraph of your barista cover letter to grab your reader’s attention and really give them a taste of what you can bring to the table.

To be maximally effective, your introduction will need to let your enthusiasm for the company and passion for the work really shine through. Gushing language and lots of adjectives are not a good way to communicate enthusiasm, though. Instead, show that you know a thing or two about the establishment.

You also need to hint at what you can do for your potential new employer. Do this is by describing what you managed to do for your current or previous employer. 

Achievements are built around a strong, direct verb, like ‘implemented’, ‘organised’ or ‘created’. They should be quantified wherever possible. This means that you should be able to put numbers to all the key points in each achievement, the benefits that you brought to your employer first and foremost.

Such benefits might take the form of increased revenue or turnover, time saved or morale boosted. These all boil down to an increase in profits. It’s totally normal that you’d have to estimate some of these benefits and other numbers, but keep it realistic and be ready to go over how you arrived at a given number.

If you can’t tie a particular achievement back to a benefit for the employer, then at least quantify the scale at which you did something. For example, ‘served over 100 customers a day’ is a lot more impressive and informative than ‘served customers’. You can use something like the STAR method to help you.

What if you’re writing a cover letter with no experience, though? Your ability to show enthusiasm and compatible goals is unaffected, but coming up with an achievement rather will be. You can look to any volunteer, internship, and placement work you’ve done for achievements, or even to your studies. You might want to try writing a motivation letter, too.

Experienced or not, if you were referred to the position, then now is the time to mention it. There’s no need to be bashful (or brash, for that matter) about mentioning the fact that someone who already works there thinks you’ll make a great addition to the team. Referrals are good for businesses and most of them know it.

There’s a lot that your opening paragraph needs to do, but if it’s too long it simply won’t get read. Keep it as short as you can, no more than 40–80 words spread across 3–4 sentences. Don’t labour any points and don’t spell things out if they’re obvious. Trust your reader to read between the lines.

Barista cover letter opening paragraph

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4. Showcase what you have to offer

Even though you’ve only just reached the main body paragraph of your barista cover letter, you’re already on the downhill stretch of crafting your best cover letter ever. This part is like the late afternoon rush that finishes just as it starts because everyone’s finishing work early before a long weekend.

Your main body paragraph is built around 2–3 achievements that are strung together with minimal connecting sentences and absolutely zero padding of any kind. If you can cobble together a kind or narrative or argument using your achievements, then great. It’s totally fine if they’re a little disconnected, though.

If you don’t have any barista experience, then describe exactly where and how you’ve previously demonstrated the skills you’ll need as a barista. You may never have had the opportunity to use a professional espresso machine, but maybe you have customer service, hospitality or organisational skills.

Keep this main part of your barista cover letter body down to 120–200 words. You can break it down into two paragraphs if that will make it more readable. Likewise, you can use bullet points to clearly list achievements or skills that wouldn’t make up a cohesive narrative anyway.

Cover letter for a barista position: main body paragraph

5. End your barista cover letter on an upbeat and confident note

Much like a fancy café sandwich or biscuit, a lot of the effect depends on how it’s wrapped up. It’s time to tie up any loose ends and generally wrap up your achievements and skills. Summarise your barista cover letter and link everything back to benefits for your potential new employer.

You have only 40–60 words to work with, so don’t labour any points or spell things out when it’s not necessary. Do, however, take the time to thank your reader for considering your application. This can have a positive effect on your application beyond just being good manners. Finally, end your cover letter on a confident CTA.

A CTA (call to action) shows your reader that you’re keen to move on to the next and subsequent stages of the recruitment process. Perhaps you could even suggest a phone conversation at their convenience. Aim to demonstrate your enthusiasm and confidence without being presumptive or pushy.

Barista cover letter example closing paragraphs

6. Sign off from your barista cover letter based on how you greeted your reader

Like using a stencil to put a panda on a latte, signing off from your barista cover letter is easy enough to do, but also easy to get wrong if you don’t know what you’re doing. You have two options and which one you choose depends on how you addressed your barista cover letter and to whom.

Use ‘Yours sincerely’ if you addressed your cover letter to someone by name (e.g. ‘Dear Julie’) and use ‘Yours faithfully’ if you didn’t manage to find a name and just used the person’s job title or function (e.g. ‘Dear ABC Coffee Franchise Owner’). Leave a couple of lines blank and type your full name. 

Cover letter for a barista job: sign-off

7. Keep these formatting guidelines in mind

Just like that fancy cocoa fern leaf or cinnamon heart on top of a latte, it’s time to put the finishing touches on your barista cover letter. If you followed this guide, you’ve ended up with a total cover letter length of about 250–400 words. This should nicely fill an A4 page, leaving you plenty of white space.

Use this white space to clearly separate sections (e.g. the header from the salutation and the salutation from the body) as well as paragraphs and bullet points. Never go over a single A4 page (short cover letters are preferred by recruiters), but do space out your barista cover letter if it’s a little on the short side—don’t leave it crammed onto half a page.

Make sure the overall layout of your cover letter and CV match, meaning that the fonts and colour scheme (if any) clearly indicate that these two documents form a single application. Choose a good CV font to use in both documents and keep the size locked in at 11–12 points. Simple cover letter templates work best as they enhance readability. 

Save or export your barista cover letter and CV in PDF unless you’ve been asked for something else. Formats like *.docx are notorious for messing up formatting when opened under different operating systems or even just computers. Always follow the instructions you’ve been given, though.

A cover letter alone simply won’t be enough—you need an impactful CV, too. Create your CV in minutes. Choose a professional CV template and quickly fill in every CV section using ready-made content and expert advice.

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How did you go? Was this article helpful in getting your barista cover letter off the ground in style? Let us know in the comments section below if there’s anything I’ve covered that you’d like more information on. And of course leave any other comments or questions you may have there as well.

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Our editorial team has reviewed this article for compliance with Livecareer’s editorial guidelines. It’s to ensure that our expert advice and recommendations are consistent across all our career guides and align with current CV and cover letter writing standards and trends. We’re trusted by over 10 million job seekers, supporting them on their way to finding their dream job. Each article is preceded by research and scrutiny to ensure our content responds to current market trends and demand.