Buying espresso machine for a church cafe?

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amcuic
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Joined: 7 years ago

#1: Post by amcuic »

Hello,

I'm looking into purchasing an espresso machine for our church cafe but I'm not sure where to start. We have about a half an hour of serving time between our service and sunday school and I'm anticipating with the opening of our new cafe we'll be serving 25-30 people at the most. I'm looking for a really easy to run machine that's fast. Somebody donated a DeLonghi EC702 but as I've been playing around with it I just don't think it's going to fit our needs at all.

Any suggestions would be great. Thank you!

ira
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#2: Post by ira »

Are you charging for coffee? If yes, then you can spend something to assist in making a profit, but it sounds like something to brew 40 cups of good coffee would be the hot ticket. Doesn't need much training, no lines and the coffee can be ready at the end of service for everyone to partake.

To make decent espresso requires fresh coffee, training and the machines require cleaning and maintenance, things it sounds like you might not be prepared for.

Ira

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HB
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#3: Post by HB »

amcuic wrote:We have about a half an hour of serving time between our service and sunday school and I'm anticipating with the opening of our new cafe we'll be serving 25-30 people at the most.
So around 1 minute per drink? :shock: That would be a brisk pace for a well-trained barista on a commercial grade espresso machine/grinder.

I cater at a local cars and coffee event once a month; based on my experience, knocking out one drink every 90 seconds is doable on semi-commercial equipment. To see what I mean, watch this video from Spot the errors in my barista routine:
That was 3 cappuccinos in 3.5 minutes on a very fast espresso machine. Below is a shorter video where i averaged around 1:15 per drink on a semi-commercial setup:
It's not easy to get your times below 90 seconds/drink. But let's say you wanted to try. In that case, a La Spaziale Mini Vivaldi ($1795) and a Mazzer Super Jolly ($795) would be a good setup. If you're willing to go used, you can knock half or more off full retail.
Dan Kehn

amcuic (original poster)
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Joined: 7 years ago

#4: Post by amcuic (original poster) »

Forgive me, when I say we're serving 25-30 people, I'm thinking customers in total. Probably half of those will be purchasing coffee. It's hard to say, though, when we first open how many will want to try, etc. I anticipate a more orders, a more faced paced situation for the first few weeks/months and then to have it die down after the glamour dies off a bit.

Your videos were very helpful and I'm definitely willing to learn!

Alaroast
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Joined: 7 years ago

#5: Post by Alaroast »

This is definitely a hard one to call and an option I was considering as well for our church. The tough thing to consider as was already mentioned is having fresh beans available. Since you will only be using this once a week in a surge mode, it could also be hard to justify the cost of a nice grinder and machine as well as a source for fresh beans. If the customers are not too discriminating in their taste, you might be able to get away with using the donated machine and keeping beans for extended periods of time. I imagine you will have a mixed bag of customers; ones who know what good espresso or cappuccino is and others who fall for charbucks with lots of flavors and additives. I'd say start small at first to gauge the interest and then adjust equipment to see if needs justify upgrades.

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SonVolt
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#6: Post by SonVolt »

HB wrote:I cater at a local cars and coffee event once a month; based on my experience, knocking out one drink every 90 seconds is doable on semi-commercial equipment. To see what I mean, watch this video from Spot the errors in my barista routine...
I spotted 1 error in your routine. :D You can swirl milk (or mine for that matter) much more effectively by resting the base of the pitcher firmly on the counter while you swirl.

iroast
Posts: 17
Joined: 7 years ago

#7: Post by iroast »

You didn't state budget. Have you considered self-service, which would mean super automatics? If super autos are out, then you'll definitely need a dual boiler espresso machine. Not everyone will want an espresso-based drink, so a drip coffee machine and an electric water boiler for tea would help reduce the # of people you need to worry about.

Moxiechef
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#8: Post by Moxiechef »

We've talked about this for my church as well. Our challenge is that 50% of the people are late for church to begin with, so to serve the 400 church goers, we'd need a three group machine with 3 or 4 trained baristas and we'd still make people even later for service. So, we just tried to up our drip brew game.

iroast
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#9: Post by iroast »

You probably need both brewed coffee and espresso-based drinks. A nice espresso machine and grinder setup with trained baristas would give your church goers a wow factor. Don't forget pastries for the kids too? Are you going to charge for this cafe, or do the tip/donation jar thing? If you're going to make them pay, provide the brewed coffee for free and charge for the espresso-based drinks ($2/cup?).

La Marzocco Strada 2 Group Manual Paddle
Slayer Plus Commercial Espresso Machine - 2 group

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redbone
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#10: Post by redbone »

Irrespective of machine; caffeinated bladders prior to an hour sermon just sounds like a bad idea.

Can you not offer coffee post church sermon instead.
Between order and chaos there is espresso.
Semper discens.


Rob
LMWDP #549

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