A college town coffee shop is coming clean with comic flair.
Lift Coffee Bar, a cafe in Tahlequah, Oklahoma, has been posting a series of TikTok videos, titled “Barista Confessions,” in which its baristas confess their deepest, darkest, on-the-job secrets.
“One time, I was taking a phone order, and I thought it was someone else,” a barista says in the first black-and-white video. They have a modulated voice and a black anonymizing bar over their eyes. “I thought it was a different regular, so I started insulting them and making fun of them jokingly, and towards the end of the phone call, I realized it wasn’t them. So when they came in, I had to act like it wasn’t me joking.”
@liftcoffeebartquah If this was you, he’s sorry #trending #confessions #barista #tahlequahoklahoma #coffee ♬ original sound – liftcoffeebartquah
In other videos, workers admit to a few different mistakes, like using the wrong temperature for certain drinks or lying about a medical condition to get time to themselves when overstimulated.
“What you are about to hear can not be held against any barista,” reads a disclaimer on all the videos. “They will deny any accusation.”
While the tongue-in-cheek video series from the shop located near Northeastern State University (NSU) has been well-received, one video in particular has attracted the most attention — probably because it’s a doozy of a confession.
@liftcoffeebartquah The first of many. #trending #coffee #barista #confessions #tahlequahoklahoma ♬ original sound – liftcoffeebartquah
“I just found out today that you’re not supposed to put the entire concentrated cold brew into a cold brew drink,” the anonymous barista says in a video with over 1.5 million views.
“I’ve been giving people 16 ounces of pure, concentrated cold brew, no water,” they add, ending with the joke, “I’ve been giving people heart attacks.”
@hiddenhousecoffee a swing and a miss #barista #baristalife #funnyvideo ♬ original sound – Hidden House
This type of coffee shop series isn’t new: In 2024, Hidden House Coffee in San Juan Capistrano, California, received hundreds of thousands of views for its own take on the trend.
Baristas in that shop confessed to making unsanitary jokes about its dirty chai and knowingly making orders wrong that the customer loved anyway.
Allie Newton, Lift Coffee Bar’s head of marketing (and a barista), says their most viral confession came after a few other confessions had already been filmed.
@liftcoffeebartquah And who can blame them🤷♀️ #confessions #barista #trending #coffee #tahlequahoklahoma ♬ original sound – liftcoffeebartquah
“The girl who was in the cold brew video was making (a cold brew) and we stopped her and were like, ‘What are you doing?’” Newton tells TODAY.com, adding that she was doing exactly what she confessed in the video.
“We were like, ‘No, that’s not how you’re not supposed to make it.’ And she was like, ‘What? I didn’t know that,’” Newton says with a laugh. “She’s worked here for a few months now and she had no idea, so I said, ‘Okay, go back to the dish pit. We are gonna film this for your confessional.’”
Newton says that a lot of the shop’s employees go to NSU and are relatively new to being baristas. But, regardless of how long they’ve been on the job, it’s good to give a little grace to those who prepare your brew.
“That’s the funny part about being a barista,” she says. “The realness of this is so prevalent because so many people do stuff like this.”
This story first appeared on TODAY.com. More from TODAY:
