Suggestions for a coffee brand in a restaurant

Dreams aloud

Just stumbled across this thread & it's just what i was looking for. Maybe some of you coffee experts can offer some advice. You know when you go to a restaurant/cafe, order a coffee & when it arrives its really strong & bitter & you end up wishing you'd ordered tea :rolleyes:..well that's what often happens to us.

Anyway the problem is that WE actually have a restaurant & we don't even like the taste of the coffee we sell! It tastes exactly the same as the ones we complain about..we just don't know what to change it for. We've tried a few different brands but with no success. I know i like the brand illy but think it could be quite expensive for what we're looking for as we only open at lunchtimes for a few hours & are more food based than coffee shop.. Really i suppose what im looking to do is to stock a coffee that customers will enjoy more.

I hope i've made sense & i'd be delighted to hear any advice.

FTGFOP

Are you and your staff fairly confident with the espresso machine?

Even with good beans you can still make bad coffee. Those bitter coffees you talk about are down to the baristas in most cases (for my tupence worth anyway).

donnacha

You also need to know how to look after your machine.
How well is it cleaned and how often? What cleaning products do you use for this? You must regularily clean the portafilter, the showerhead (take it apart - you wouldn't believe what builds up in there), you need to backflush etc.

Once you have a clean machine, and a trained barista, then you'll need to focus on type/freshness of coffee bean and grinding to order.

Dreams aloud

FTGFOP wrote: »

Are you and your staff fairly confident with the espresso machine?

Even with good beans you can still make bad coffee. Those bitter coffees you talk about are down to the baristas in most cases (for my tupence worth anyway).

Well i'd like to think that we are, although as we focus more on lunches & the food side of things the emphasis on staff training would be more waiting tables than the coffee machine, we just don't sell enough coffees to justify that. We're more of a bar food place, not somewhere people would come specifically for a coffee, they might just have one at the end of the meal.

I really feel the quality of the coffee is the problem though but im sure even with good coffee certain staff could still manage to mess it up!

Do you know if it's possible to get someone in to talk about this to, a trained barista or someone who knows their coffee?

FTGFOP

Local to me (Cork) there are two folks who will offer instruction along with beans -I'm just going by their websites.

Badger and Dodo, Fermoy.
and
Cork Coffee Roasters (under services).

They both have facebook profiles too.

Dreams aloud

donnacha wrote: »

You also need to know how to look after your machine.
How well is it cleaned and how often? What cleaning products do you use for this? You must regularily clean the portafilter, the showerhead (take it apart - you wouldn't believe what builds up in there), you need to backflush etc.

Once you have a clean machine, and a trained barista, then you'll need to focus on type/freshness of coffee bean and grinding to order.

Well we "blow out" (run water through) the coffee machine every day when we close, as to taking it apart or whatever im not really sure. It's not really my side of things but i'll certainly enquire. How regularly do you think it's necessary to do this? God we really are clueless. :rolleyes:

We really don't sell enough coffee to get employ someone who's a coffee expert but i'm willing to learn.

Thanks for your advice

Dreams aloud

FTGFOP wrote: »

Badger and Dodo, Fermoy.
and
Cork Coffee Roasters (under services).

Thanks, i came across something on another website about Badger and Dodo, i think maybe they supply Ballymaloe cafe. Have you tasted their coffee? I'll definately look into those.

FTGFOP

Ask me again in a couple of days, I put in my first order recently!

I like CCRs Summerhill blend, and they run a very nice café in the city.

Kudos on being concerned about the coffee you serve, by the way. I think a lot of places serve bitter coffee and don't even think twice about it.

mandarin

Both CCR and Badger and Dodo do great coffee.
B and D do supply Ballymaloe and about 40 other cafes/restaurants, incl a fair few in Dublin/outside Cork (may be relevant to you, don't know your location). Have two main blends - I prefer their premium blackwater blend to their red rock espresso, FWIW. Cafes supplied are given a 100 point checklist to ensure coffee is always served as it should (the owner, Brock, is a judge in Irish barista c'ships, and should be appropriately perfectionist).

CCR's coffee is legendary in Cork. It's heaven.

Both roast their own coffee, so it will be fresher than Illy (which is very expensive) and the other usual international brands.

You can't go wrong with either.

Dreams aloud

FTGFOP wrote: »

Ask me again in a couple of days, I put in my first order recently!


Kudos on being concerned about the coffee you serve, by the way. I think a lot of places serve bitter coffee and don't even think twice about it.

Will do

Well it seems ironic that im always (silently) complaining about the coffee i get served in places when im not even happy with what we serve.

Be the change you want to see in the world..& all that!

(Also if it's nicer hopefully we'll sell more so it's a win win really)

Dreams aloud

mandarin wrote: »

Both CCR and Badger and Dodo do great coffee.
B and D do supply Ballymaloe and about 40 other cafes/restaurants, incl a fair few in Dublin/outside Cork (may be relevant to you, don't know your location). Have two main blends - I prefer their premium blackwater blend to their red rock espresso, FWIW. Cafes supplied are given a 100 point checklist to ensure coffee is always served as it should (the owner, Brock, is a judge in Irish barista c'ships, and should be appropriately perfectionist).

CCR's coffee is legendary in Cork. It's heaven.

Both roast their own coffee, so it will be fresher than Illy (which is very expensive) and the other usual international brands.

You can't go wrong with either.

Sounds great, thanks for that. I'll contact both of them & see what i can come up with.

Thanks again to everyone for all the great advice, will let you know how i get on.

the beer revolu

Well i'd like to think that we are, although as we focus more on lunches & the food side of things the emphasis on staff training would be more waiting tables than the coffee machine, we just don't sell enough coffees to justify that. We're more of a bar food place, not somewhere people would come specifically for a coffee, they might just have one at the end of the meal.

I don't go to bars or restaurants specifically to use the toilet but I still expect it to be of an acceptable standard. Same goes for coffee or anything else.

OP, as you've probably gathered from this thread, simply changing your coffee beans probably won't give you great coffee.

Coffee seems so low on your list of priorities that it is not really a surprise that your coffee is poor.

Once you and your staff are trained properly, it is little more effort or time to make good coffee but you will need to learn the basics.

Your machine probably need a service too, if it hasn't been properly cleaned in ages.

Once you're trained and in a routine and have sourced decent beans, it really is no big deal to produce consistently good coffee.

As mentioned, any good supplier will help you to serve their coffee correctly.

donnacha

Dreams aloud wrote: »

Well we "blow out" (run water through) the coffee machine every day when we close, as to taking it apart or whatever im not really sure. It's not really my side of things but i'll certainly enquire. How regularly do you think it's necessary to do this? God we really are clueless. :rolleyes:

We really don't sell enough coffee to get employ someone who's a coffee expert but i'm willing to learn.

Thanks for your advice

For a shop I'd hazard a guess you are talking a minimum of once a week to soak your portafilter, clean the gasket, shower screen etc - a few of the regular contributors here might have a better idea on the schedule. I know I do my own home espresso machine every 2/3 weeks and the amount that builds up under the shower screen is quite surprising.
Best of luck with it - again don't rush into buying the coffee just yet - good coffee through a dirty machine is still going to taste rank. Buy yourself some cafiza and get cleaning