Waiting times for your coffee - An Explanation

For 4 years I worked at Marylebone Cricket Club as one of the senior managers in the Catering department, and in the functions in the Long Room, we were always looking at ways to get hot plates out to the tables, in as little time as possible, with speed, efficiency, presentation and of course quality on the plate and to the palette. Absolute importance.

At Kaffeine, we take everything we do very seriously as well, just like at the greatest cricket club in the world. As Kaffeine has became busier over the past year, our waiting times for coffee have increased. Of course this is unacceptable, both to us and also to the customers, so we have now invested in a three group espresso machine and now have three baristas working each day. (previously we only had a two group machine and two baristas, and wait times were up to 7 or 8 minutes).

Now, in our very busy periods, we are down to under 3 minutes from the time of ordering to hand off to the customer, and I do not believe we can get much faster than that, and we have still maintained excellent quality, with friendly, fast, efficient service.

People talk about introducing other brew methods such as siphon or pour overs, this is all well and good, but will it create a fast and efficient service process? It will take very good, skilled baristas and allocated counter space to do so. It is possible, but wil it be cost (labour especially), effective?

If Kaffeine 2 ever arrives, perhaps we will then look at counter space and brew methods, but until then, at Kaffeine, we are staying with what we know, espresso.

Peter Dore-Smith
Director
Kaffeine Ltd
66 Great Titchfield st.
15 Eastcastle st.