Choosing a Good Restaurant Coffee Machine

How to choose a good restaurant coffee machine? (Key points)

To decide on a coffee machine that is good for your food and beverage operations, you need to look at:

The volume of operations
The type of establishment
Whether you are buying or renting the machine

Choosing a good restaurant coffee machine isn’t always just about choosing the most branded commercial espresso machines from renowned manufacturers like La Marzocco, Victoria Arduino, and Nuova Simonelli.

Many times, it is about choosing the machine that best fits your coffee shop operations. Is your cafe or restaurant going through high volume with a large number of cups of coffee a day? Do you require 3 group heads? What sort of coffee beans are you using? Could you perhaps utilise an automatic espresso machine for your operations? These are all good and valid considerations to go through before making a decision on what sort of espresso coffee machines to use for your restaurant.

Drop us a message to learn how to have a free coffee machine in your restaurant. Visit OCM's coffee machine for restaurant & cafes

Volume of Operations

Choosing a good restaurant coffee machine - Volume is one of the key deciding factors in helping you decide what sort of coffee machine you should place in your restaurant or cafe.

If you are expecting to deal with extremely large volumes where you’re going to be churning out 400 cups of coffee by 9am, then you’ll definitely need to think about getting a full sized commercial coffee machine with 2 or 3 group heads, depending on how many baristas you have working the station.

Not only will you require multiple group heads, it might also be prudent to get an espresso machine that has separate boilers so that the temperature of the boilers can be kept high at all times, even as you work the steam wand non-stop.

On the flip side, if you are dealing with moderate to low volume, or perhaps a high volume that is dispersed throughout the course of the day, you might actually want to consider using an automatic espresso machine in your coffee shop.

On the market, there are some pretty robust automatic machines that can also deal with large volumes, and are priced at about the same amount as a high end semi automatic espresso machine.

The only difference? - One requires skilled labour while the other does not. Also, one provides a more professional perception to your consumers than the other, which leads us to the next point.

Drop us a message to learn how to have a free coffee machine in your restaurant. Visit OCM's coffee machine for office and companies.

Type of Establishment

Choosing a good restaurant coffee machine - Many types of food establishments serve coffee, but it is useful to determine if you are the type of establishment that serves coffee as an accompaniment to your other core food products, or are you a specialty coffee joint that is focussed on coffee as a core product.

If your establishment is better described by the former, then it would be good to consider utilising a an automatic coffee machine which will not hurt your reputation in any way (since your reputation is built on your food products), will not require skilled labour to operate, and provides you with a high level of consistency throughout your operations.

As baristas are considered a form of skilled labour who typically command higher wages than other staff, you could actually save quite a bit of money by employing more service staff to run your operations, as opposed to hiring a full time skilled barista. In contrast, a specialty coffee shop thrives on the branding of a coffee experience that is delivered by professionals, which calls for the expertise of trained baristas, working on professional espresso machines to produce the best possible cup of coffee.

Buying or Renting a Coffee Machine

Choosing a good restaurant coffee machine - After combining the two earlier points of consideration and deciding which type of coffee machine you’d prefer to work with, it would be a good time to think about how you’d like to acquire the coffee machine for your restaurant.

Typically, there are two ways of doing this with one option being an outright purchase, and the other being a rental agreement with a supplier. In a purchase setting, you pay the cost of the coffee machine upfront, and it is yours to own and maintain throughout the life of the coffee machine.

In a rental agreement however, you pay a rental fee for the coffee machine at a cost that usually includes maintenance and repairs. While the cost of renting a coffee machine typically adds up to be more than purchasing, it does help to neutralize the worry of your coffee machine breaking down and having to pay for its repairs.

The arrangement also eliminates the need for huge amounts of upfront cash as some of these machines can cost up to $30,000 to purchase.

In some arrangements, if you buy and use the coffee beans supplied by your coffee supplier, the rental could even be lowered, which can have a very positive impact on your cash flow, and your running of the business.

If you are interested in finding out more about a rental arrangement for your next coffee machine, drop us an enquiry and we’ll get back in touch with you as soon as possible. Or, check out our home for articles that are similar to "choosing a good restaurant coffee machine".

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Choosing a Good Restaurant Coffee Machine

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