L1 for commercial use

Edward Ashley

I was wondering if I could get a general idea of how quickly the L1 produces drinks in a commercial setting? I'm thinking of adding an L1 into my upcoming juice bar and I'm not sure I have the budget for an L2. Since coffee won't be my only business do you reckon an L1 might do the job?

Apologies for such an open ended question

Reiss Gunson

Hi Edward

yes it will be ideal for that kind of scenario

if you only expect to make espresso & steam milk then the 120V edition will be just fine

If you want to draw large volumes of hot water off the boiler regularly, e.g. for Americanos or tea i recommend the 240V edition as it has a faster recovery time after a lot of hot water is draw off

kind regards

reiss.

John Heckendorn

Edward, just to clarify, are you talking about the L1 or the L1-P? The latter has a larger boiler, more steam capacity, is plumbed-in and IMHO would be a better choice for commercial use. While it's more expensive than an L1, it's still half the cost of an L2.

Maybe some of the folks who have owned both will comment on one vs. the other for your use case.

Sebastien Mailloux

If you can afford it, go for the L1-P for sure for the reasons mentionned above. Much better in any commercial environnement.

Edward Ashley

I'll go for the l1-p then, I may be working a market stall without plumbing occasionally but in that case I suppose I can run the l1-p into a 5 gallon jug of water with a pump.

Thank you for the help

John Heckendorn

Before I plumbed in my machine, I used a FloJet like this:

https://www.chriscoffee.com/Water-Demand-Pump-p/bw-1000.htm

It works quite well mounted in a large water bottle.

Reiss Gunson

thanks to the other contributors, with good suggestions

the impression i got was coffee will be very much on the periphery of your core business, which itself is a startup - if this is the case the L1 will be fine, even a 120V, unless you are drawing off hot water which kills the recovery time

can you give us any idea of daily volumes of coffee, in terms of number of cups, and how you would expect that volume to be distributed through the day?

for example, if you are 30 cups a day spread throughout the day the L1 will be just fine

if its 30 cups needed in a half hour period then perhaps its a bit too much for an L1, but the real remedy in that situation would be a two group machine in any event

in an ideal world you would get an L1-P, for sure, but if cash is tight don't over capitalise - learn to make do and if it goes well you can easily upgrade. it is a lot easier to spend it than earn it

unless you are swimming with the VC sharks, startups are all about the conservation of cash. many good ideas have failed because the cash was blown too soon. a small bump in the road that wasnt in the business plan and it was all over. be frugal, be a success, and be the sole equity holder.

kind regards

reiss.