Atelier19g Blog

Equipment needed to open a coffee shop

After making the decision to open a coffee shop, sooner or later, the question of buying equipment and all kinds of inventory arises. It's good if the budget for the entire list is planned correctly from the start, but more often than not there are limitations, because of which at the beginning only the most necessary part of the list is purchased, and as the business develops, the rest of the equipment is bought. In this article we describe our vision and share our experience, in what sequence it is better to take tools for work.
First of all, you need to determine what is included in the basic set for making coffee, without which it is impossible to do, namely:
- espresso machine;
- coffee grinder;
- tamper;
- pitchers.
This set does not include scales, and here's why. If in a new coffee shop the main plan is to quickly prepare coffee from cup to cup (somewhere more bitter, somewhere more sour from cup to cup), then scales are not needed. But if there is a desire to make the product as tasty and high-quality as possible, then they are necessary.

To make the logic of building up the toolkit clearer, we will go with you through the path from opening to reaching maximum profitability indicators on an abstract small coffee corner with four seats, working on disposable dishes, with one barista per shift, delivery pastries and a standard sink.
So, opening.
As we remember, we already have a basic set. So far there are not so many orders, but you can notice that the new tamper has already got scratches, and maybe even dents during falls. What to do with this? Buy a rubber/silicone mat for tamping. The mat provides protection from damage for both the base of the tamper and the stand, besides, it improves the grip of the holder when "tamping". This inexpensive purchase will save you money on replacing tampers and polishing the stand.

The next stage, orders are still few, but scattered on the stand particles of ground coffee catch your eye. Customers pay attention to dirt, it's ugly and unaesthetic.
You can use a towel or cloth, but no matter how good a cloth is, it will also spread trash around, so it makes sense to take an additional brush for quick cleaning of surfaces from coffee and trash particles.
(Of course you could use a regular brush for painting walls, but we with you as true representatives of catering will leave them for painters:)

Next, after working for some time, you can clearly identify "hours of intensity" - time when the flow of visitors increases and orders go one after another. For example, in the morning from 7 to 9, in the afternoon from 12 to 15 and in the evening from 18 to 19.
You can also see that after these hours there is a significant increase in traces of drops and particles of ground coffee. This does not add appetite, especially if the tile or floor in the coffee shop are light. How to deal with this? If there is room on the stand for it, you can install a knock box, if not - place a knock tube (it can also be moved anywhere). In both cases we reduce the path of used coffee from the working group to the place of disposal - and this is time and cleanliness.
A little more time later, we see that the number of orders in "hours of intensity" has increased, there are already noticeable queues. The barista does not have enough clean pitchers, there is no time to wash them either. Therefore he is forced to whip milk foam in already used ones 3 or more times. There are a number of disadvantages in this:
1) it's ugly, dried foam on the walls of the pitcher does not inspire trust in the establishment;
2) whipped many times in one pitcher foam negatively affects the taste of finished drink.
It's time for a rinser. If the establishment has an opportunity to install a rinser we are convinced that it should be done. It will save a lot of time and help keep working dishes clean.
Options for rinsers with drip tray partially act as a place for drying.
At this point you can draw a preliminary conclusion. With such a set of equipment you can work not only efficiently, but also maintaining an acceptable cleanliness of the workspace and giving drinks as fast as possible, thus extracting maximum profit from the establishment.
The equipment that will be discussed below will be needed in two cases:
1) demand significantly exceeds supply, and hiring a second barista per shift is not yet in the plans (reduces the size of profit);
2) as an example, we are not looking at a small coffee point from the first part of the article, but a full-fledged coffee shop with a large number of seats and good traffic. In this case you need to work on the taste of the drink and image among the regular audience.
How to increase productivity?
In addition to the rinser, which reduces the time for rinsing pitchers, let's look at a few more interesting examples of special equipment for coffee shops.

Auto tamper.
What can this tool give?
- Time saving - the tamping procedure takes only one and a half seconds;
- The result will be the same and completely stable. This partially helps standardize the taste of coffee, regardless of performers.
Automatic milk dosing system.
It solves two problems at once: control of milk consumption, time saving. It makes sense to install it in places with good traffic. The thing is simple to use, fully performs its tasks.

How to improve the taste of coffee and make it consistently good?
The first thing that can improve the taste of espresso is a leveler for coffee.
The leveler will not make an immediate increase in 20% to the taste of coffee, but there is no limit to perfection, the taste will definitely become more stable.

The second point that directly affects the taste of coffee is burnt coffee oils and residues of ground coffee on the inner surface of the holder and working group. Yes, this negative effect on taste. Therefore, during the day barista should clean both holder and group.
To clean holder enough to remove basket and wipe everything.
But with working group things are a bit more complicated, we advise you to use a new tool - "Espazzola", in which efficiency has already managed to convince team Atelier 19g. This tool allows you to quickly and effectively clean working group as many times as you want during working day.
In this article we did not write about preparing coffee by alternative methods. This is explained by the fact that drinks prepared on espresso basis bring most of revenue compared to "alternative".
The second reason - in our example from article, one barista works, with presence of "alternative" in coffee shop need at least two.
Coffee market is developing, opening a huge number of new establishments where you can buy not only cappuccino or espresso, but also "filter", V60, "aeropress". Competition, as a consequence, also grows, so adding "alternative" to menu you can cover more coffee lovers. You can read about drip coffee makers, kettles with long spout, grinders for beans "for alternative", all kinds of funnels and filters on them in another our article.

In conclusion I would like to say that if you can not buy all equipment at once, consider development of your coffee shop and plan ahead for future growth of your business. Provide and calculate space on stand for knock box and rinser (instead of it you can put rubber mat for now), which will be purchased as possible.
If drip coffee maker and grinder for it are planned (or if boiler appears), take care of availability of sockets and maximum power of electric network.
All this will help you avoid possible loss of ergonomics, time for rearrangements, nerves when things finally went "uphill".
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