Gaggia La Reale: As the lockdown dragged on, retailers up and down the country, their premises closed to the public, found themselves with little else to occupy their minds other than contemplation. ‘Is my offer right, is my store layout right; am I offering the right products, am I making a good job of marketing my business?” It’s been a period of self-examination…
Chris Kraszewski, the owner of Carat’s Café Bar in the West Sussex seaside town of Southwick, did exactly that and subsequently, he made a list of pros and cons. On the plus side, Carat’s Café is an extremely popular beachfront café, with regular customers including tourists, dog walkers and cyclists. Secondly, Carat’s is popular throughout the day; busy for breakfast and lunch and a favourite coffee break venue in between. To top that, the venue also boasts a license to serve alcohol.
The quality of the coffee served was at least as important as the food on offer…
Even so, he recognised that it was the kind of cafe where the quality of the coffee served was at least as important as the food on offer. And in that respect, he was concerned that he’d flagged a potential ‘con’. He found himself concluding that, when it came to coffee, Carat’s could do better. Maybe it was time to add a top-quality coffee machine to the café’s facilities: the question was, ‘which machine?’
‘We decided we needed to reinvest, to make sure we could provide the best possible coffee for our customers when they started to return to cafés and restaurants when restrictions were eased’, Chris said. ‘Our old machine had served us well, but it was showing signs of age.
As a venue respected for its taste and style, it was vital that any new machine, on top of delivering drinks of a quality that would outshine those of the competition, added to Carat’s aesthetic. With that brief in mind, Chris consulted his long-time supplier and friend Paul Ramsey, whose coffee business, Domluca, was located down the road in Rustington.
There was one machine that ticked all of Chris’s boxes – the flagship Gaggia La Reale.
To Paul’s thinking, there was one machine that ticked all of Chris’s boxes – the flagship Gaggia La Reale. ‘At Domluca, we’ve been fans of the Gaggia La Reale since its arrival in the UK in 2019. We appreciated its potential immediately. With the combination of drink taste, machine design and the excellent value for money it offers, it was clear to us that the Gaggia La Reale – complemented by a Gaggia G10 grinder – would put Chris in a good position to build on the reputation for excellence that Carat’s Café has built in recent years.
‘We have installed many, many coffee machines over the years and I can honestly say that the drink flavour achieved by the Gaggia La Reale is the best we have ever experience’ Paul said, ‘and it comes with a very affordable price tag. I recommended that the combination of top quality and low price was the right one for Chris. The machine’s design gives a nod to Gaggia’s iconic coffee heritage – but there’s no doubt that it is at the cutting edge of coffee machine technology.’
In Pauls’ view, the G10 Grinder would also offer Carat’s a number of advantages: ‘The dose on demand feature means that beans are ground exactly as desired and are then used immediately. This ensures that there is no loss in flavour, as well as speeding up the service behind the counter. It’s the unsung hero, if you like, and partners the Gaggia La Reale brilliantly’, he said.
‘It’s exciting to see that one of the UK’s most forward-thinking cafés has taken this opportunity to invest in order to enhance their customer offer’, Evoca UK Sales Director Craig Jukes said. ‘There’s no better way to entice people to return to your coffee shop again and again than delivering quality that can’t be matched elsewhere locally.’
Chris Kraszewski agrees: ‘When we were presented the Gaggia La Reale as a potential replacement, we were immediately impressed. I’m glad we made the decision to go for it, because ours is the first machine to be installed in the Brighton area, and it really has given us a head start on our competitors. Whilst we all enjoy a friendly rivalry, there’s no doubt in our minds that this machine not only looks amazing, but also it creates the best tasting drink we’ve ever served. That’s been the real benefit of choosing this machine: our customers love the coffee it serves and they keep coming back for more.’
More news from Evoca UK is on Planet Vending, HERE
