Kat Padlan

Kat Padlan is a coffee operator, educator, and consultant with more than ten years of experience across every level of the specialty coffee and the food and beverage industry. She has managed and stabilized multi-shop café operations, including award-winning shop Lucky's Coffee Roasters, BIGFACE Coffee, Square, and more. She has trained hundreds of baristas and managers, built full operational systems from the ground up, and worked directly with producers, roasters, and café leaders across the U.S. and abroad.

Kat specializes in leadership development, team culture, and operational structure, areas she has seen consistently make or break new coffee businesses. Through her consulting company, she works with new and existing café owners, helping them understand the realities of the industry, their responsibilities as leaders, and the operational and human skills required to build sustainable, people-first businesses.

Her industry perspective is shaped by years of working in high-pressure café environments, navigating staffing challenges, supporting new owners through launch and failure cycles, and helping teams rebuild culture after organizational breakdown. Kat is known for her direct, honest, and people-centered approach to leadership.

She has witnessed, solved, and experienced the exact problems new owners underestimate, and she brings a grounded, real-world understanding of what it truly takes for a café to succeed.