coffee
shop or café (barista style)
Having already
decided that you want to operate a Barista style outlet you
should consider the following carefully:
Correctly assessing the required
output of a machine is an important factor in your buying
decision. If you need hundreds of cups per day you will require a
machine that is robust and able to withstand the punishment that
it will be expected to soak up. Generally speaking, the premium
Italian brands are built to ‘a standard’ rather than a price.
Machines from elsewhere in the world are more often built with a
cheap price as the priority.
The rule "you get what you
pay for" holds true in this case. If you are happy to replace
your espresso machine every 18 months because it has fallen to
pieces then go ahead and buy on price. If, however, you want a
life expectancy exceeding 3 years then you will need to spend a
little more.
It is important that you
remember that most manufacturers specify the potential drink
output of equipment. Few specify the recommended daily throughput
relative to the build quality. This can be misleading because if a
manufacturer says the machine can produce 200 coffee per hour,
this does not necessarily mean that the build quality is
sufficient to withstand 200 cups per hour for 8 hours per day, 7
days per week!
In Barista style Coffee shop
operations your espresso machine is THE key piece of equipment and
you will expect it to produce hundreds of thousands of pounds
profit over its life. Our recommendation is to buy quality. You
will experience fewer technical failures and will not be forced to
change your machine as often as you will if you buy cheap
equipment.
When considering any technical
product it is essential to assess it’s capabilities based on a
‘worse case scenario’, (or from a coffee retailers
perspective, ‘a best case scenario’). Here we are talking
about your busiest trading times. We advocate that it is always
better to purchase equipment with a little ‘head-room’.
If you are likely to want to
produce 200 cups in a hour you should purchase a machine that can
comfortably cope with 300 cups per hour. This way the unit will be
operating well within it’s design parameters and the components
in the machine will not be operated at breaking point.
With this in mind you need to
ask yourself how many groups (coffee making positions) you will
require. It is a popular misconception that beans to cup
(super-automatic) machines produce espresso and cappuccino faster
than traditional equipment. In fact a 3 group espresso machine in
the hands of one or two trained baristas can produce 3 times more
coffee in the same time than a super-automatic.
Generally the equipment selected
by coffee shop operators are 2, 3 or 4 group machines. On a 2
group a trained barista can comfortably produce 6 coffees per
minute. On a 3 group machine, two baristas operating the same
machine with an extra grinder can produce 10 coffees per minute or
12 coffees per minute on a 4 group.
The general rule is that each
group can produce up to 4 single shot espresso coffees per minute
depending on the drink size and skill of the barista. Obviously
this reduces by half if you are dispensing double shot espressos
for larger cups or lattes etc.
The reality is that by the time
the customer has selected a pastry, panini or doughnut and paid
your cashier you will never need to serve 960 drinks in an hour.
Depending on your location, however, you may need to serve three
or four hundred coffees in an hour, which is no mean feat. The
point is that you need to assess you likely maximum requirement
and then select the appropriate number of groups.
This has only become an issue
within the last five years. Following the trend started by
American Coffee Shop retailers, consumers now demand huge drinks.
(16oz Cappuccinos and Lattes are not unusual).
The first thing to ensure is
that your machine provides enough clearance between the drip tray
and group filter spout for you to introduce the size of disposable
cup that you intend to use.
The second ‘cup size’ issue
is the capacity of the heat
exchangers within the boilers.
(A heat exchanger is like a large pipe going through the centre
of the boiler. Cold water is pumped into it at one end and as this
flows through the exchanger. The temperature in the boiler around
the exchanger heats the water up before the hot water passes
through the coffee and into the cup).
With small heat exchangers, if
you are drawing out large volumes of coffee for gigantic coffees,
cold water will constantly be pumped into the exchanger which will
cause the temperature of the water already in the exchanger to
drop. In turn this will cause the temperature of the coffee to
cool a little until the water temperature in the exchanger has ‘recovered’.
The larger the heat exchanger the less displacement of hot water
with cold and the faster the recovery time.
Using a simple example: imagine
you have a saucepan that is half full of boiling water. You then
pour in an egg cup full of cold water. This has almost no effect
on the boiling water because the large amount of boiling water
instantly heats the small of amount of cold water added. If,
however you pour a jug of cold water into the boiling water, the
water will immediately stop boiling and will take a few seconds to
start boiling again. We call this ‘the recovery time’ and this
is referred to in the next section under boilers.
The boiler
is the heart of every espresso machine. It’s size determines how
much hot water and steam you can produce. Half of a boiler is full
of water and the other half is full of pressure so when you look
at the published capacity of a boiler on a brochure you need to
remember that only half of that capacity is actually water.
Boiler sizes range from 2.5Ltrs
on a 1 group machine to 30Ltrs on a 4 group machine. Generally,
restaurant and bistro operations successfully operate with smaller
boiler machines because they are not required to produce gallons
of coffee in a few minutes. Coffee bars are, however, quite
different and we advise all coffee shop operators to specify a
minimum boiler size of 10Ltrs.
To use a simple analogy, imagine
that you have a saucepan that is half full of boiling water. You
then pour in an egg cup full of cold water. This has almost no
effect on the boiling water because the large amount of boiling
water instantly heats the small of amount of cold water added. If,
however you pour a jug of cold water into the boiling water, the
water will immediately stop boiling and will take a few seconds to
start boiling again. We call this ‘the recovery time’ and this
is referred to in the next section under boilers.
As most of the premium based
coffee drinks are based on a single or double shot of espresso
coffee, a traditional machine is capable of producing any drink
you create. Indeed the single largest impediment to offering a
complex menu is the ability of your baristas coupled with diligent
quality control management from you.
The list of drinks is endless
and it would take pages to discuss the various options and
permutations. Moreover, consumer preference is an evolutionary
process, so what is right for today may not be right for tomorrow.
The point is that everything is possible with the correct staff.
On a business level we suggest
that you create a core menu of four or five options served in
different sized cups. You can then start to introduce the more
exotic concoctions and test the customer reactions, adjusting your
menu as appropriate.
Remember that there are
thousands of coffee shops serving hundreds of drink variations. If
you ordered an espresso from most of these you would be surprised
at how poor the quality of the drink is. The moral of this story
is that your baristas need to care about the quality of the base
drink. They need to understand what espresso really is, how it
originates and works with the various other ingredients that are
used. Starting with the basics is a good idea.
All manufacturers provide
equipment dimensions. To each machine you will need to add about
35cm for the grinder which must be located immediately next to
the machine, preferably on the left. Ideally you will also need
a counter that is deep enough to provide a working area on the
counter in front of the machine for the barista to make the
drinks prior to serving.
Locating the machine on the
front has the benefit that customers don’t see the mess that
making coffee can sometimes cause, but a back bar machine shows
off the full glory of the process. The choice is yours but we
point out that locating the machine on a back bar leaves the
front bar free for merchandising and serving.
You will need to fit a water
softener in the cabinet beneath the machine. This is about the
size of medium sized fire extinguisher, so you need a space that
can accommodate such a large vessel. Finally you will need a
knock out drawer for knocking out the used coffee. In a coffee
shop operation we suggest that you fit a large capacity draw
directly beneath the machine. Alternatively you could use a
smaller, self-contained draw unit that sits beneath the grinder.
Historically the
catering trade has resisted paying big salaries for a whole raft
of reasons. This is possibly why the industry has such a high
turnover of staff with all of the problems that this brings.
Given the margins in coffee and the need to encourage repeat
business our best advice would be to pay the absolute maximum
you can afford to retain good baristas. At the moment a large
branded coffee retailer is paying its experienced baristas
£18,000 pa +.
There are a number of training
organisations which provide so called ‘barista training’.
Actually, what most are doing is simply teaching people how to
make a cup of coffee. In fact many of the trainers have never
worked as real Coffee baristas and whilst they know the theory,
give nice presentations and can make a coffee in an unpressured
environment, you need much more than this.
Our approach to training is
simple: we are happy to arrange training courses to include food
hygiene and handling, health and safety, barista operations,
first aid etc. Prices for these bespoke courses range from
£150.00 to £2,000 per head depending on what is required.
The key to successful training
is to ensure that the candidate is motivated, prepared to commit
to work with you for a minimum period of time, can see career
progression within the industry and is a personable intelligent
individual. Easy to say, hard to find.
Inevitably all successful
coffee retailing operations try to obtain the best location to
maximise the potential from passing trade. Having said this, if
you can also build repeat custom your business will thrive.
Retaining customers should be the key tenet of your business.
Apart from keeping the menu fresh, and introducing specials now
and then, you will also need to ensure that your standards don’t
slip.
As with any start up business
or new site opening, the enterprise experiences maximum energy
and enthusiasm at the very beginning. Over time, however, the
enthusiasm will start to wane, which is precisely why it is
vitally important to put in place a rigorous Quality Control and
Quality Assessment system right from the outset.
Audit features on the more
sophisticated espresso models will contribute to the QC to
ensure that every drink is of optimum quality. This data will
then form part of your overall QC procedures which we recommend
you write in 'tablets of stone'.
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