Anyone familiar with a lever machine called 'La Cara'?

[zimpo]

Hello, first post here, looks like a great place.

Anyone familiar with this kind of machine -- someone told me it may be spanish ?

(working on pic posting)

Thanks for any replies

zimpo

[HB]

I like a google challenge and this one led to a few interesting sites. It would appear you're referring to the lever espresso machine made for Thomas Cara of San Francisco; there's a nice picture on flickr:


La Cara Espresso Machine on flickr

and an interesting background story in an unlikely place, the Carfree family blog from August of this year:

I've rescued myself from agonizing over ridiculously expensive espresso machines by buying this machine off Ebay. La Cara was built for Thomas E. Cara's of San Francisco and was basically a knockoff of the La Pavoni. I believe La Pavoni forced La Cara to stop producing it, but they are still in business selling and servicing machines, so I hope I'll always be able to have the machine rebuilt if anything goes wrong with it. I'm eagerly awaiting its delivery.

With this little tidbit in hand, I continued with Rosemary Furfaro's recollection of Mr. Cara's establishment in The Finest Espresso Machines of San Francisco and Best of the Bay 2002's Best Kept Secret for the Espresso Connoisseur. The Pavoni Express website listed contact information:

Thomas Cara Ltd.
517 Pacific Avenue
San Francisco, California 94133

Phone# 1-415-781-0383
Fax# 1-415-781-7224

Finally, apparently HB member badgrinder knows a little about the good folks at Cara's, as he mentioned them in passing in La Pavoni problem with leakage between the group head and PF.