Have you ever walked into a restaurant and then had a great meal spoiled by the drink at the very end of it. You order an espresso or cappuccino and what you get is some watered down mixture that either came out of a pack or was made with a machine that shouldn’t even be in a home let alone a high end restaurant.  This is the perfect place for commercial espresso machines.

What a lot of restaurant owners don’t seem to understand is that people that are ordering espresso usually know what they are looking for and it sure as hell isn’t garbage.  Maybe they brought their machine in from home because a few customers were asking for it and then sales took off because the waiters started to push it.

The problem here is that most home machines are not meant to crank out cup after cup and when they get abused, the quality of the products starts to falter.  It may taste great for a cup or two or even a dozen, but a machine like that is not meant to crank out a few hundred of them a night.

The difference in a good espresso maker can make all the difference.  It will be able to maintain its temperature and will also be able to produce the product without delay.  We all know how impatient customers can get when they don’t get their espresso after dinner and the last thing you want to do is take money out of your waiters pocket in regards to the tip because your machine cannot keep up with the demand.

The last impression you make is always the most important.  Think about it.  You can have a perfect meal and if dessert and coffee are horrible, that is what the guest will be talking about on their way out the door.  All of a sudden they forget about how great the eggplant appetizer was and that the gnocchi were out of this world. Nope, it is all about the nasty cake and watered down espresso they got on the way out the door.

The opposite of this is true if you start out a little rough and then manage to recover during the meal.  Maybe you were a little slow getting them seated because it was a busy night and then the first course was a little slow getting to the table.  It started to turn around with the entrée and then to really win them over, you send over free home-made gelato and a delicious glass of cappuccino to finish them off.  Believe me, those early mistakes are water under the bridge at that point and they will be back.

One thing is for sure, you can never cut corners on the espresso machine. It may generate the least amount of income for any machine in the place, but the income that it can lose far outweighs anything else.  Leave your guests with a great last impression and make sure the espresso is top notch with a commercial espresso machine.