[Case study] How to speed up in a café

Your café is the most popular in town, but you're struggling at peak times to handle orders as quickly as you'd like? We've got a case study to help you streamline the work of your baristas.

Client introduction

Recentlywe were contacted by Martin, who owns a café in the centre of Prague. His cafe is located in busy part of the city and is known for its excellent coffee.

However, Martin is struggling with the problem that due to high customer demand for his coffee, it takestoo long to process orders and prepare drinks. This means that his baristas cannot satisfy all customers in a quick enough time while maintaining the quality that the café is known for.

Martin realised that customers werestarting to leavebecause of the long waiting times and slow service and werelooking for alternatives where they could get their coffee faster. He came to us asking for help tomake the baristas more efficient and increase coffee sales.

Automation as the key to success

After careful consideration of the latest coffee machines andall sorts of technology, we have come to the conclusion that automation really is the key to success.

However, we were also mindful of the fact that not everyone has the financial means to equip their coffee shop with thelatest machines, so we also looked at the long term impact it can have and whether the investment will pay for itself.

Automation of coffee preparation

After assessing coffee machines and the work of the baristas themselves, we concluded that the best coffee machine for automating the actual espresso preparation is the Black Eagle Maverick T3 2GR from leading coffee maker Victoria Arduino. As we know that baristas in a coffee shop have had their work automated considerably over their years of practice, Martin also has new and less experienced baristas in his coffee shop who take considerably longer to get started. But this is what this coffee machine can solve, with itsfeatures that automate the work of everyone, regardless of their length of experience, and the overall operation of the coffee machine will speed up by5 minutes per cup.

Coffee machine gravimetry = automated coffee weighing without an external scale, saves about 5s of time on each coffee due to scrolling and tare the scale.
auto purge function = automatic rinsing of the coffee maker of residual coffee particles every time the lever is removed, this saves us about 3 seconds of time due to manual button pressing.
my coffee function = presetting different coffee recipes for each head of the machine. Here the calculation is very relative, as here the help is one-off, but overall we save time within afew minutes.
multiboiler system = thecoffee machine contains multiple boilers. This allows you to individually set the temperature of each one. The extraction of coffee with constant temperature water is thus not affected by heating the water for steam dispensing. With this technology ,it's more about quality than speed, but your customers will thank you.
Adjustable water dispensing = At the press of a programmed button, it dispenses the same amount of water for, for example, an extended espresso or a pot of tea.
Active heating surface with °Cadjustment = Ensures that all the cups you need in the café are always the same temperature. Here we've compared it to heating a cold cup with the hot water of a coffee machine, which is roughly 4minutes of time that you can save with this feature.
Pure Brew = a program that can use a special conical lever to prepare filtered coffee or tea directly in the coffee machine. This function saves you approximately 8 minutes of time, as Pure Brew can make a decoction in less than 2 minutes.

This is how the Black Eagle Maverick T3 2GR coffee maker from Victoria Arduino looks on the bar. Source: victoriaarduino.com

Automation in milk preparation

When we interviewed Martin about his coffee shop and what's hot, he revealed that thecoffees with milk are the biggest sellers. As we know, a cappuccino or latte takes much longer to prepare than a regular espresso, about 4 minutes on average . Fortunately, there are already ways tospeed up the process to just a minute and a half.

Übermilk = automation in milk whipping. All the barista has to do is put the pot under the Übermilk and it will create perfectly whipped milk for latte art. It can handle up to 250 coffees per hour and whips one milk injust 7 seconds.
Teapot wiping = A technology that allows you to beautifully wash the teapot in just 2 seconds, so that washing the teapot by hand after each cappuccino is over.
Accelerate coffee making with alternative milks = Get multiple teapots of different colours to divide up at the bar . Such as a green teapot just for oat milk, a red teapot just for soy milk.

Übermilk frother. Source: instagram.com/uebermilk

Automation for grinding

Another part where you can speed up coffee preparation is the grinding. Martin has a Fiorenzato grinder in his cafe , which, while fully powerful, grinds coffee in about 5 seconds. So we took a look to see if time could be saved even more here.

And yes it does! The Mahlkönig E80S GbW is a professional, heavy-dutygrinder with 80 mm grinding stones. And it is suitable for very heavy duty use because it grinds 6g of coffee in one second! This means that a portafilter for two espresso batches grinds in approximately two seconds. Simply perfect quality in an extremely short time.

The Mahlkonig E80S GbW professional grinder. Source.

Automation for tamping

Tamping is an integral part of the espresso process. We found that Martin uses theclassic coffee tamping processin his café, which is atamper and distributor,for tamping. However, this process takes approximately 7 seconds, this time can be saved and in the end, space is gained to serve more customers.

Therefore, our clear recommendation was the PuqPress M5. It is an automatic tamper that willcompress the coffee in just 1.3 seconds and the tampingwill be done with the same force and for the same amount of time each time. Puqpress thus eliminates errors and imperfections in the tamping process. Another great advantage is that this version is also directly compatible with the Mahlkönig E80grinder, therefore it does not take up a large amount of space.

The PuqPress M5 is compatible with the Mahlkonig E80 grinder, so you have everything nicely at hand and save space. Source.

Results

After implementing these new technologies and tips, Martin was able to significantly speed up the café and improve the customer experience.

The automation of milk whisking has resulted in a time saving of two and a half minutes per cup of coffee. The introduction of the PuqPress reducedbrewing time by approximately 5 seconds and the new grinder saved 3 seconds of time. And the new coffee machine has made work more efficient thanks to built-in technologies, saving an average of 5 minutes oftime on each cup. In total ,it managed to save over 7 and a half minutes of time on a single cup of coffee.

Thanks to these time savings, Martin was able to increase the number of orders by 25%. Customers noticed improved speed of service and overall efficiency in coffee preparation. This led to greater customer satisfaction and a 15%increase in café turnover per month.

Advice and recommendations for the future

To help Martin maintain the benefits he has gained and ensure the long-term success of his café, we recommended the following:

Regular servicing and maintenance of technology: it is important to ensure that new technology is regularly serviced and maintained to keep it in optimum condition. Regular cleaning and inspection will ensure their reliable operation and longevity.

Training for staff: It is essential that baristas are properly trained in the use of the new technologies. Martin should provide training to help them use and maintain the equipment effectively.

Constant monitoring and innovation: the coffee industry is constantly evolving and bringing new technologies and trends. It's important that Martin and his team are open to new developments and stay in touch with us, as we will keep an eye on constant developments and technologies that could further improve the café's operations.