What Equipment Do You Actually Need to Open a Coffee Shop?

What Equipment Do You Actually Need to Open a Coffee Shop?

There is a dangerous place called the coffee equipment catalogue.

You open it just to look.

Twenty minutes later you're comparing espresso machines that cost more than your first car.

Coffee equipment can become an obsession very quickly.

And while good equipment matters, the trick is understanding what you actually need rather than simply buying everything that looks impressive.

Start with the espresso machine

For most coffee shops, the espresso machine is going to be one of the most important pieces of equipment behind the bar.

But don't simply ask, “Which machine is the best?”

Ask, “Which machine is right for my business?”

A small coffee shops serving a few coffees every hour has very different requirements from a busy breakfast restaurant producing hundreds of drinks.

Number of groups, steam capacity, boiler configuration, footprint, water requirements, ease of use and service availability can all matter.

The most expensive machine isn't automatically the best choice for your particular business.

Don't underestimate the grinder

If there is one piece of equipment that people sometimes underestimate, it's the grinder.

You can have a fantastic espresso machine.

Put mediocre, inconsistent grounds into it and the machine isn't going to perform miracles.

Your grinder needs to produce a consistent grind and allow you to adjust it accurately.

And in a busy coffee shop, it also needs to survive being used repeatedly throughout the day.

You may even need more than one grinder if you're offering different coffees or decaf.

Scales are not just for coffee nerds

A scale might not look like the most exciting piece of coffee equipment.

But knowing how much coffee you're putting into the portafilter and how much espresso you're getting out makes it much easier to reproduce a recipe.

Consistency is important in a coffee shop.

The customer who loved your cappuccino yesterday would probably like to get something remarkably similar today.

Our own espresso dialling-in guide explains the basic idea of dose, yield and extraction time in simple terms. Read more about dialling in espresso here.

Water is equipment too

This one is easy to forget.

Coffee is mostly water.

The water coming into your espresso machine can affect both the coffee and the machine itself.

Depending on where your coffee shop is, you may need filtration or treatment to protect the equipment and get better brewing water.

This is something worth considering before you install the machine rather than after you discover a problem.

Then there is everything else

Fridges.

Dishwashers.

Ice machines.

Blenders.

Kettles.

Cups.

Knock boxes.

Tampers.

Milk jugs.

Cleaning equipment.

Storage.

And probably another fifty things you didn't realise you needed.

The important thing is to buy equipment based on how your coffee shop actually works.

Not how impressive it looks on Instagram.

A good coffee shop isn't created by having the biggest espresso machine.

It's created by having equipment that allows your team to produce good coffee quickly, consistently and without making everyone's life unnecessarily difficult.

What Equipment Do You Actually Need to Open a Coffee Shop?

— Henning  Al-Gharb Coffee Roasters, Algarve

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