Choosing the best commercial coffee machine & equipment for your café
- 4 Jan 2024
Starting a café is not just about serving a cup of joe; it's an art, a science, and a business all rolled into one aromatic blend. One of the most critical decisions you'll make in this journey is choosing the right commercial coffee machine and cafe equipment. Think of it as selecting the heart and soul of your café—get it right, and you're on your way to brewing success; get it wrong, and you might find yourself in hot water.
In this guide, we'll dive into the intricate world of commercial coffee machines and equipment. Whether you're a newbie barista opening a cafe or an established café owner looking to upgrade, this article is your roadmap to making an informed decision when choosing coffee equipment for a cafe. We'll unravel the complexities, debunk myths, and provide you with actionable insights to ensure that your café not only serves the best coffee but also operates efficiently and profitably.
From espresso machines that promise a perfect crema every time to grinders that ensure consistency in every grind, we've got you covered. So, grab your favourite brew, sit back, and let's embark on this caffeinated journey together.
THE RIGHT EQUIPMENT CAN SAVE YOU $$
When you’re looking at getting set up with coffee equipment, you need an experienced wholesale supplier that can help to tailor a solution for your exact needs. The right setup ensures a quality product, efficiently and profitably every time. Some of the most popular choices in coffee equipment include:
- Commercial Cafe Coffee Machines
- Automatic Tampers (Puqpress)
- Cold Brew Keg Systems
- Automatic Milk Steamer Systems
Financing these purchases can happen in a range of ways...
RENTAL OR BUY - WE CAN HELP WITH BOTH
Getting set up with the best coffee machine and equipment that you can is one of the most important decisions you can make when setting up your café, and navigating quality and costs can be overwhelming. Trusting an experience wholesale provider who specialises in coffee machines and equipment, and gets regular access directly from trusted manufacturers and brand suppliers our team can walk you through the main options is essential.
Purchasing coffee equipment: If you’re replacing old equipment and are sure about the type of machinery you need, then buying a coffee machine, grinder and other accessories outright can seem like the obvious choice. While you might be able to buy some models online, the team at Crema Coffee Garage can order it for you, unpack it and bench test it to make sure everything is in order, and then organise a full installation from our experienced service technicians. While it can be cost effective to buy your equipment outright, there are other things to think about if you decide to go ahead with an outright purchase, including paying for regular servicing and maintenance call outs when needed.
Rental Agreements: When you’re starting a new venture or you’re not sure about the level of coffee sales you can expect, it can be difficult to make a final choice on equipment. This is where renting a coffee machine and equipment can be a great option. Renting gives you a chance to ‘try before you buy’ and scale up your equipment as the business grows. Crema offers its clients the option to buy their coffee machines and equipment at the end of the rental agreement, continue on with a rental agreement, or upgrade to different equipment if necessary. Aside from the flexibility to change equipment between contract terms, you will also get free regular machine servicing (excluding filter changes and damage due to negligence) and emergency tech support when you need it from our service technician department. Some good reasons people choose to rent a coffee machine include:
- Flexibility with 12, 24 and 36 month contracts
- Uncertainty about the viability of the venture
- Short venue lease agreements
- Low start-up capital
- You’re not sure how much coffee you’ll go through to start with
While a condition of a rental agreement with Crema Coffee Garage does mean you will need to use Crema coffee beans, usually our clients choose us for our awesome coffee beans first, and machine options second. However we’re happy to give clients some information on third party financing options if they would rather be able to choose to use coffee beans from other coffee suppliers.
On-loan Agreements: On Loan Agreements are an arrangement where coffee companies will place equipment in your cafe with no upfront charge for a fixed term, with a small portion of the cost of the machinery built into the price of roasted coffee beans per kilogram. This arrangement has been very popular, but does rely on a fairly known quantity of coffee being sold. For cafes who go through less than 10kg of coffee per week, it’s not an arrangement that would be the best financial fit. While the lack of upfront cost is attractive, signing on to an on-loan agreement can come with risks when you don’t know exactly how much coffee you’re going to go through, because the arrangement is based on you buying enough coffee to cover the cost of the equipment. If your coffee sales dip below the amount stipulated in the contract for an extended period, you may find yourself also paying a rental charge to cover the cost of the equipment and servicing costs. For cafes who have been operating for a while and have a medium to high coffee volume, an on-loan agreement would be a great fit: shiny new gear, included servicing and support and the option to buy or upgrade at the end of the loan term!
POPULAR COMMERCIAL COFFEE MACHINES
Expobar MegaCrema Hi Group
Rent or Buy
From $51/week
Crem 2 Group Hi EX3
Rent or Buy
From $56/week
Rocket Espresso Linea Professional
Rent or Buy
From $79/week
Sanremo Cafe Racer
Rent or Buy
Ask For A Quote!
POPULAR COMMERCIAL COFFEE GRINDERS
Anfim Pratica Commercial Coffee Grinder
Rent or Buy
From $21/week
Anfim SPII Commercial Coffee Grinder
Rent or Buy
From $34/week
Mazzer Robur S Electronic
Rent or Buy
From $37/week
Victoria Arduino Mythos One
Rent or Buy
From $35/week
ALTERNATIVE BREW GEAR
It’s becoming increasingly common to offer more than one style of coffee in a café. While espresso will always reign supreme, a close second is cold brew coffee, with filter coffee coming in hot recently. What makes them such a great team is that they’re all extremely different coffee styles, and they offer your customers a way to drink more coffee in a day without getting bored of the taste or texture. Cold brew coffee is a real game changer, especially in Australia when the temperatures soar every year. There used to be a huge drop off in the consumption of coffee before this gem cam along to save the day, and now our clients are reporting very stable coffee sales from winter to summer. Crema Coffee Garage can teach you how to brew cold brew coffee, and if it becomes a big hit we can talk about upgrading you to a small fridge and cold brew keg system. Having cold brew on tap speeds up your coffee service significantly, and you know what? It looks damn cool too. Filter coffee machines can be set up in the morning to brew 8-10 cups at a time, and the jugs are insulated to keep them hot and steamy. A light and refreshing brew, they’re super popular with black coffee drinkers that find a black espresso just a little too rich. And somehow, they’re just so more-ish – you always need a second cup and many cafes offer a ‘bottomless’ price on filter coffees so you can get a refill throughout your stay. There are other popular brewing methods in cafes that Crema can set you up with, which include:
Offering different or alternative brewing options doesn’t mean you’re getting too fancy or ‘hipster’. It means you’re offering something for everyone, and something that people want - that’s just good for business.
SERVICING AND CARING FOR YOUR CAFE EQUIPMENT
One major point of difference is that a quality wholesale supplier won't outsource coffee servicing or repairs to third party operators. They'll devote a part of their business to setting up a fully-fledged service department, with a team of coffee technicians who all started with backgrounds in mechanics and electrician trades first. One of the most stressful things that can happen to you as a café owner is having your equipment breakdown mid service, or waiting months to get a coffee technician to come and give it a service. We hear plenty of stories about coffee machines breaking down completely because they waited so long on a list to get a service.
20 years ago Crema Coffee Garage started as a café itself, and knowing the loss of business trade and panic that a broken coffee machine can cause, we decided to do things differently. Because we have a full service department we can:
- Order in coffee machines, standard and custom orders
- Bench test them to make sure everything is in working order
- Fully install them and set them up
- Offer emergency technical support, 7 days a week
- Keep our clients machines on a regular service schedule
Regular serviced schedules mean that while accidents and emergencies do happen - they never breakdown due to neglect, and you never have to wait for a service. Our service technicians are all friendly coffee lovers too, so when you need to simply ask a question you can ring our service department and chat to one of them whenever you need to.
BARISTA TRAINING AND CAFE WORKFLOWS (NEWCASTLE ONLY)
Along with having a full equipped service department, we also put time and thought into setting up a fantastic training facility. The Newcastle Crema Coffee Academy provides both accredited and non-accredited training to support the development and improvement of barista skills for all. Our most popular Newcastle-based courses include:
- Accredited Barista Foundations Level 1: 2 units • Prepare & serve espresso • Use hygienic practices or food safety
- Barista Advanced Level 2 (Level 1 pre-requisite): put your skills into practice with a practice service session
- Guided Practice: Are you a barista or student looking for a place to practice your skills? We offer you the space, the supplies and the guidance when you need it to practice your skills.
- Commercial Coffee Training: only available to our Crema clients, this class is specially focused on trouble shooting and the nerdy details of why things happen the way they do, and how to fix it.
The commercial coffee training we offer to our clients is definitely one of our biggest points of difference. When a new Newcastle based client comes on board, we offer them between 4-6 complimentary training places to get them off to a great start. We always recommend that managers and owners come along so that they can get a great understanding of what’s involved and be advocates for their baristas. We also offer 2 complimentary spots every calendar year to each of our clients so that anyone who wants to do a refresher course, or new staff that might have joined the team can come and learn the tools and techniques used to make great coffee.
Our commercial coffee training isn’t your standard coffee course. We focus on trouble shooting – all the things that can go wrong, and how to fix them. We teach our students how to change their grind, how to time their shots, how to program their shot volumes and how to split their milk properly. We talk about how to improve workflow, and how to teach their customers to order their coffees correctly. We don’t just teach great coffee, we teach great service. And the best part? You can always access it as a commercial client. So many of our clients now book their new staff in before they even start work at their cafes, because they know how good our training is and how valuable it is for them to learn the latest techniques from us. It’s also pretty great that they can outsource a little bit of the mental load of training a new staff member, because as we all know – it’s always a little bit of work in the beginning. If you’re looking for a company that is willing to invest in you with top quality training and support, Crema Coffee Garage has definitely got that base covered.
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
Often forgotten but definitely the framework that underpins everything we do – our administration and delivery team keep our team and yours in business. Not all heroes wear capes, and the tight knit team that makes up orders, accounts, warehouse and delivery are the ones who make everything else we do possible.
- Our accounts team will set up a billing schedule and terms that suits us both, and are always here for you if you’re having any trouble paying on time. Just let us know, we’ll set up a payment plan!
- Our orders team is here to help support our fantastic online ordering system, explain new products, fix ordering mistakes and set up your custom order favourites online.
- Our warehouse team co-ordinates between orders and delivery to make sure that we have the stock you need, and if we don’t – they get it on order ASAP and stay in contact with you about it.
- Our delivery team are probably one of the smiling faces you’re going to see the most. They’re on the front lines and seeing our clients every day, and can be your first point of contact when you have questions or problems. They work super hard every day to get your order correct to you on a consistent day and time each week or fortnight.
When you come on board as a Crema client, this team works together to make sure your experience with us is smooth, friendly and supportive. They’re the crew that receives and directs all Crema enquiries by phone and email, and they’re the department who has to know the most answers to your questions. We’re not sure what we would do without them, but we’re lucky that we don’t have to find out. If you’re looking for a coffee supplier that offers a full service coffees solution, run locally by a team who loves what they do and each other – you’ve hit the jackpot. Give the Crema Coffee Garage team a call today or submit an enquiry online to book a casual chat with one of our staff.
ASK ABOUT OUR ALL INCLUSIVE SERVICE PACKAGES
CHOOSE A COFFEE ROASTER THAT HELPS YOU GROW
The biggest super power coffee has is its ability to connect people of all walks of life together in shared spaces, with shared conversations. Our darkest times and our happiest times are both often shared over a cup. It’s wild to think that such a small thing could be the vehicle to such inclusion and connection, but the team at Crema Coffee Garage hasn’t missed that fact. We have made it our entire reason for existing.
If you’re looking to partner with a coffee company that makes a fantastic product supported by the full range of services and cares about you – you’re in the right spot.
Click here to learn more about our cafe supply packages and solutions, or
Give the team a call or submit an enquiry online today and we’ll touch base with you to figure out what you need a hand with.
