Today’s
coffee movement provides an incentive for any fine dining restaurant and, many
cases, high end retail establishments to offer specialty coffees. Many find it prohibitive because of perceived
high costs and lack of expertise. This
is not necessarily the case.
There
is a way to achieve this without the expense and maintenance of an elaborate
espresso machine, a lot of space and a barista with 20 years of training. I recently opened what they call a “slow bar”
in a fine dining restaurant, went into the black pretty quickly and ran it
successfully for a little over a year. I
had no previous experience other than roasting coffee beans and preparing my
own coffee.
There
are many ways to brew “slow brewed coffee” while using low maintenance,
inexpensive brewing methods. With these
methods you are able to serve espressos, cappuccinos, Cuban coffees, con leches,
Americanos, macchiatos, etc. Your menu
can be quite extensive.
In
my case, I used four methods of brewing, aeropress, pour over, French press and
the Bialetti Moka Express. Compared to
an expensive espresso machine, these are very low cost and low
maintenance. There was an electric two
burner hot plate, a propane camp stove, a sink with some counter space and a
total of approximately 50 square feet.
Other
utensils included 2 water kettles, a milk frother, a stainless steel pan for
heating milk, a thermometer, glassware, an electric burr grinder and 4 airtight
containers for the roasted coffee beans.
Total cost for everything (most of it from Amazon) was under
$700.00. The space was contributed by
the restaurant. If you are going to
roast your own beans, this does not include that cost. In my case, I used a Behmor 1600 roaster
which cost under $450.00.
Key
to your new bar and having coffee that is exceptional are your beans and your
grind. I used beans that had arrived in
the United States within the last six months and the beans that were served had
been roasted within the past two weeks. In
my case, I roasted my own beans, however, I also had a relationship with a
local roaster in case I ran short of my own.
Finally, a fine grind was used for all methods except for the French
press where a coarse grind was set.
The
following was our menu:
All coffees slow-brewed with our freshly roasted & freshly ground
beans.
Cappuccino………….…………$5.00
Café Latte…………….………..$5.00
Espresso Macchiato……..$5.00
Cuban Macchiato……………$5.00
Café Con Leche……………..$5.00
Flat White……………..…………..$5.00
Espresso……………………….$4.00
Cuban…………………………….$4.00
French Press…………………$4.00
Pour Over…………….……….$4.00
Americano…………….………$4.00
Regular or Decaf……..….$3.00
Cortado – 3 oz espresso/3 oz steamed milk…………..……..…$5.00
Red Eye – 1 shot espresso in cup of regular…………..……….$6.00
Mocha – espresso, chocolate syrup, steamed cream……….$5.00
MaCocoa – espresso, Crème de Cocoa, heavy cream….$8.00
All coffee drinks can be made with decaffeinated beans, if you prefer.
Waiters
and waitresses would take the coffee order, I would make the coffee and deliver
it. There was a new bean every week or
two and I would be available to talk about it with the customer.
Finally,
a little of my background in coffee. I
have always enjoyed my coffee and five or six years ago a coffee importer
friend of mine got me interested in roasting my own beans and I purchased the
Behmor 1600. I came up with the idea of
opening a coffee bar after a few years and made an agreement to do so in a fine
dining restaurant. I then spent a lot of
time with coffee manuals, Google and you tube learning how to make the various
coffees. All in all, in retrospect, much
less time and money than most coffee operations I’ve experienced and all done
by a guy with no barista experience.
This
is certainly not going to replace any of the fine coffee shops I have spent
time in, however, it is a great way to add gourmet coffee to an existing
restaurant, retail establishment, motel, etc.
Thanks for reading,
Mike
Michael
N. Vanatta
mnvanatta@gmail.com
