Hello home baristas,

I wanted to document my journey of introducing a Linea Mini into my office setting at work with about 15 people in the building.

All the forums I've read has been filled with numerous negative responses on even attempting this with only 1 or 2 cases I've seen where someone bringing a machine in has increased the enjoyment of working with coffee. I also have not come across any thread here discussing how they go about successfully operating a hobby coffee shop experience at work.

Installed setup:
La Marzocco Linea Mini (2017) reservoir (will plumb later)
Baratza Vario
Coffee & milk is employee provided

Current situation: K cups of tea and coffee (that may go away). Employer provided.

The machine has been installed for 1 week now with only a single active taker of wanting to learn how to use it. The machine has sat idle in favor of everyone else using k cups due to the convenience, and probably also not wanting to touch a shiny expensive machine. And after a spam to the frequent coffee drinkers, only 1 taker for free lattes and espresso in the morning (the same person who wants to learn to use it). I use it to not buy Starbucks before I run off to my MBA night classes.

Why did I decide to do this?:
Frankly my machine at home is staying idle as I get up late and don't have time in the morning, so this office machine will get more use since I'll be awake enough to use it at work. I also want to passively learn what it takes to motivate employees as coffee has always been held high on the list of desirables for millennial employees.

What I hope to get out of this setup is to:
- improve the work culture/atmosphere at the office in a positive manner
- Generate improved business development with internal and external customers

I am currently footing the bill for materials and maintenance, which has been a whole $5 for 2 gallons of milk at Costco, no cost for beans, and 2hrs to troubleshoot and fix a leak (part replacement complements of la marzocco's amazing customer service)

Where I envision this going:
- embracement of coffee and a menu expansion.
- attention from higher ups on promoting positive social change
- online ordering implementation. Development of a coding skillset from this, which is professionally beneficial
- better recruitment and staff retention within the company.

I will post back here to status the endeavor, as this seems like a positive trend into uncharted territory at the moment. This is my way to promote culture from the bottom up within the corporate chain as this is something I want and am making it happen.

I'm interested in both positive and harshly negative feedback, or potential ideas to try and implement.

Linea mini is pretty much the ideal machine for this set up. Only thing I can think of that would make things easier for the punters at the office would be a non burn steam wand.

I would think, in this situation, that a Nespresso machine may be more what your employees are looking for.

ready to exchange a Nespresso with your Mini.
shipping on me

Who's buying the mops and buckets?

dsblv wrote:It seems you may be missing something. The employees say they want better coffee but few seem willing to make it themselves. If people aren't using the machine, then this may be the wrong solution. Have you asked the employees what type of improvements they want made to their coffee experience? Making it themselves may be low on their requirements.

I was thinking about the low participation in favor of convenience. That is an interesting finding telling me how powerful k cups have become in the consumer market.

I have not directly asked the mass of people here what they actually wanted, but pinged a few of the espresso drinkers if they'd like a machine in the office and the answer was yes. We had budget for like $1000 for a setup but we all know at that price it would most likely not be a good quality setup to be abused so I just skipped the whole part of that and brought my setup in. I also thought it puts a different thought on care from people respecting someone's stuff over it's the company who cares mentality

However, at a minimum the value is still there for me to make the drinks I love and enjoy.

mgwolf wrote:I would think, in this situation, that a Nespresso machine may be more what your employees are looking for.

I think nespresso is the better option for convenience but given the higher cost, the boss will never go for that. Our office does go through a lot of k cups id say.

Once you figure in the cost of good coffee and the price of the LMLM/grinder, you can buy an awful lot of Nespresso pods.

I couldn't imagine this going over well in any office environment I've been a part of.