The espresso machine died during our busiest Saturday rush

Last Saturday around 10:30 AM, our La Marzocco just shut off mid-pull. No warning, no error code, nothing. We had a line out the door for the farmers market crowd, and I stood there with steam wand in one hand and a dead machine in front of me. I called our repair guy, but he couldn't get there until Monday. So I did what I could: I grabbed the backup drip brewer, put up a sign saying espresso was down, and started making pour-overs with the hot water kettle in the back. We sold maybe 15 pour-overs in two hours, which was better than nothing, but I lost at least 80 people who just walked out when they heard no lattes. The repair turned out to be a $40 solenoid valve that took the guy 20 minutes to swap. Has anyone else had a major machine fail at the worst possible moment, and how do you talk to customers about it without sounding like you're making excuses?

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1 Comment

patricia31711d ago

Pour over is not the same as espresso, but calling it a pour over when you used a hot water kettle is a stretch too. You basically made fancy drip coffee with extra steps, which is fine, but dont tell customers its a pour over. They know the difference and it just makes you look like you dont know what you're doing. Customers respect honesty more than a fancy name for something they can taste isnt right. Just say you're doing manual brew until the machine gets fixed, that sounds way more legit. The solenoid thing sucks though, $40 part taking down a whole weekend is brutal.