Before the machine arrives

Setting up a coffee bar: the parts nobody budgets for

Most café fit-outs get the machine right and the things around it wrong. Then the electrician is back a week before opening, the bench is 30mm too shallow, and nobody has thought about where the water goes.

This is the checklist we work through with sites in Hampshire and across the south. It is written from twenty years of engineering and capital projects before this was a coffee company, and from installing and living with these machines since.

1. Power, early

Commercial espresso machines are among the heaviest single loads in a small café. A two-group typically wants 21–29 A on single-phase, which is a dedicated circuit, not a spur off the ring. A three-group can reach 33–36 A single-phase — at which point three-phase is usually the easier and cheaper answer, because the same machine drops to 15–21 A per phase.

Ask your electrician two questions before you choose a machine: what spare capacity is on the board, and is three-phase available at the property. The answers can change which machine you should buy.

If the board cannot take a commercial two-group, the Slayer Steam Single is worth a look — it runs from a standard 13 A socket and has a 2.5 litre internal reservoir, so it can go in before the plumbing does.

2. Water, or you will pay for it twice

Scale is the single most expensive thing that happens to an espresso machine, and most of the south of England is hard water. Get your supply tested, then specify treatment to suit it — not whatever filter came in the box.

Budget for the filter head, the cartridge, and a schedule for changing it. Put the change date in the same calendar as your fire alarm test, because the one that gets forgotten is the one that costs a boiler.

Water also changes how your coffee tastes. Two cafés on the same beans and the same machine can pull noticeably different shots because of what comes out of the tap.

3. The bench

• Depth: commercial machines commonly run to about 71 cm deep. Add clearance behind for plumbing and the power connection — a 700 mm bench is not a 700 mm machine space.
• Width: allow for the machine plus a grinder either side, plus knock box and tamping room. A three-group can be 113 cm on its own.
• Height: standard 900 mm worktops plus a 43 cm machine puts the group heads around chest height for shorter baristas. It is worth dropping the machine bench if you can.
• Load: a three-group with water in it is around 139 kg before anything else sits on the bench. Cheap carcass units flex.

4. Drainage and access

A plumbed drain under the machine is far better than a bucket someone has to remember to empty. Leave room to pull the machine forward for service without dismantling the counter — an engineer who can reach the back in ten minutes costs you less than one who cannot.

5. The grinder is half the result

A brilliant machine behind a poor grinder makes ordinary coffee. If the budget is tight, spend it on the grinder and buy fewer groups. Also plan for two grinders if you intend to run a decaf or a guest coffee — retail customers ask, and switching hoppers mid-service is miserable.

For a busy independent the Compak i8 Pro is the value pick, with a Compak i3 Pro alongside it for decaf. The whole range, with volumes and prices, is on the Compak grinders page.

6. People and the first month

Book training for the week you open, not the week you install. Agree who dials in each morning, write the recipe on the wall, and decide what happens when something breaks at 7am on a Saturday. That last answer should be a phone number, and you should have tested it.

Next: the Slayer espresso machines, the Compak grinders, the rest of the equipment we stock, and the coffee to put through it.

OHCO Coffee roasts small-batch speciality coffee at Hursley Park, near Winchester, and is the southern UK distributor for Slayer Espresso. Call 07901 650123 or email info@ohcocoffee.co.uk. Figures quoted are typical for commercial machines and taken from manufacturer specifications current in March 2025 — always check the numbers for the exact model you are buying.