Coffee shops and cafes that produce fantastic coffee, time after time, are frustratingly rare. But they do exist… and coffee lovers know where to find them, and they tell their friends!

If you’re a coffee shop owner, you will know how challenging it is to produce outstanding espresso-based coffee. And when the multiple variables have been mastered, the next hurdle is to deliver this time after time and with the fastest speed possible.

Mark at Cafe Allez! is here to help with your espresso-based coffee offer, wherever you are on the spectrum – from developing your coffee menu and pricing, to choosing a fantastic roaster and building a partnership with them, to dialling in quickly and effectively, to training your staff…

If you’re charging £3 plus per cup, we think your customer deserves coffee that looks and tastes incredible, whatever time of day they visit your shop and whoever happens to be the barista at the time.

Check out the Coffeesultant page of our website now to find out more, and get in touch for your free consultation if you think we can help…

Thinking Of Buying A Home Espresso Machine? Before You Take The Plunge…

You’re a coffee lover, you’ve got some Christmas gift vouchers to burn and you’re thinking of a home espresso machine. We get it! – wouldn’t it be great to have coffee-shop-quality drinks at home and without paying £3 every time? Especially when there’s shiny, sophisticated kit on the market promising to deliver just that with ease.

Cafe Allez! would urge a little caution before you take the plunge, but before we go further: here, we mean an espresso machine where you’ll be grinding the coffee first, then tamping it into a group handle for the machine to brew an espresso shot… perhaps with the machine also including a steam wand so you can steam milk to combine this with your shot to make a cappuccino, flat white, or caffe latte…

The first thing to say is: all the home espresso machines we’ve tried to date are capable of producing truly delicious espresso. BUT! – there are some factors to weigh up…

1. Expense

Decent kit is a major investment and you must budget for a separate burr grinder too, if your machine doesn’t have one built in. Then consider the cost per cup: for the coffee we use, you’ll be spending £8.95 for 200g from 200 Degrees. That’s 76p per cup, plus any milk and power to run the machine.

And if you thought £3 is steep at your coffee shop, consider that if they’re doing it right, they’ll be using a considerable amount of coffee each day just ‘dialling in’ – that’s the process of setting the grinder to get the right weight of coffee, that then brews the specified volume of coffee in the specified extraction time. That’s an investment any good coffee shop will make, but it might start to hurt at home if, let’s say, you get 11 double espresso shots from your £8.95 bag and you’ve used 6 of them up just dialling in!

Also: don’t assume after you’ve ‘dialled in’ once, you’re all set. You might need to repeat the process for different coffees, but also with the same coffee from a different roast batch … or even as the temperature or humidity in your house changes.

2. Hassle!

Once you’ve made your coffee, you’ll need to clean up! – you’ll have a tamper to clean, portafilter, milk jug and group handle to wash, and a machine to wipe down. Your coffee shop will do this for you…

Then, there’s maintenance of the machine. Scale will form whatever water filtration system you use, so factor in time and cost for regular back-flushing and descaling.

3. Skill

We’re going to level with you: making good coffee is really hard! Baristas take months to get good, longer to get expert. You might really want to learn those skills – and you can get a head-start with some classroom barista training – but if you just want a decent coffee without all the learning and experimentation first, you may quickly get frustrated.

We mentioned dialling in before. This can be exasperating as you try and hit that magic balance between the 3 variables: weight of ground coffee, dose of brewed coffee and extraction time.

Steaming the milk to get that silky texture you experience in a great coffee shop takes practice … and we find it harder to achieve on a home espresso machine because of the lower steam pressure.

As for latte art: it’s the cherry on the cake, but be prepared for lengthy practice sessions before you achieve something you’re proud of.

4. Time

If you consider the process steps involved, making an espresso-based coffee takes time. Grind the beans; tamp them; pull your shot; pour your milk; steam it; pour milk into coffee; wipe and purge steam wand; rinse jug.

Even with commercial kit, that’s going to take the best part of a minute. Your home machine, though, won’t pull the shot and let you steam milk at the same time in all likelihood plus, as mentioned, the steaming process takes longer too: so let’s say, 2 1/2 minutes per coffee. If your dream was to delight your dinner party guests with your barista skills, let’s hope they’ll excuse you for the 15+ minutes it’ll take you to whip up 6 coffees!

Home Espresso Machines: In Summary

We know what goes into making a good espresso-based coffee and that’s why we’ll always travel to our favourite local coffee shop if we want one!

Don’t get us wrong: a home espresso machine will be an absolute treat if you want an absorbing new hobby, centred around learning about coffee and how to make it well. But if that doesn’t sound like you: we won’t judge you if, like us when we’re not on board Henri,  you prefer to leave it to the experts…

The Melton Mowbray Christmas Tree Festival is often a highlight of our Christmas … it’s a magical event, in the beautiful St Mary’s Church, with absolutely scores of trees to enjoy.

The level of creativity on display this year is outstanding. We’ve made our small contribution, so as the Festival is open today, 2nd December, why not go along … and keep an eye out for the Cafe Allez! tree when you do.

Claire has designed and made lots of miniature Van Henris. Unlike the real thing, they feature reliably working headlights, and the tree’s topped with a highly appropriate logo…

We hope you get to enjoy the Festival this year as much as we do!

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We’re very proud of our association with Collecting Cars, the leading global online quality car auction site. It’s an internet-based business, but with a team of knowledgeable and passionate people behind the scenes, many of whom we’ve had the pleasure of meeting now.

Collecting Cars arrange events globally to bring customers and like-minded people together. Sometimes this is on a huge scale, such as their gatherings at Bicester Heritage that we’ve also catered for.

However, this event, in September, was a more exclusive gathering in collaboration with SCD (Supercar Driver), the club that helps members get the most out of supercar ownership.

Another example of quickly Van Henri can be re-branded to suit the event and the client … this was a really special morning, greatly enjoyed by all..

We miss seeing our regulars since we closed the ‘shop at Belvoir. So we were thrilled when loyal customers, Mike & Maureen, suggested that we take Cafe Allez! to their home to help them celebrate their Diamond wedding anniversary with friends and family.

We took Van Henri along and delivered a coffee morning, complete with pastries freshly baked that morning from Bloomsbury Bakery in Grantham.

It was so good to see Mike and Maureen again, along with some familiar faces, including Rose and Tilly, who we were proud to call colleagues back in the Belvoir days.

It reminded us that coffee and conversation go hand in hand. Good coffee and a bit of quality time together has been a regular and important part of Mike and Maureen’s partnership and 60 years of marriage suggests it’s a recipe for success!

Do get in touch if you’d like us to bring Cafe Allez! to your home: Henri, our Citroen HY coffee van, can fit on most driveways!

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We were proud to be chosen to provide a barista coffee service to caffeinate and delight the (many!) guests to the Caesarstone stand at the KBB 2022 show, at the NEC, Birmingham, this month.

This was particularly pleasing as this key trade show for the kitchens, bedrooms and bathrooms industry comes around every two years. We were providing the same service in 2020 when it was becoming all too clear that the pandemic was heading our way. Shortly afterwards, the NEC closed its doors for a good while. So, in 2022, we were back: familiar faces around us, a fantastic stand (designed and built by Henson Franklyn) and a general consensus that it was good to renew connections and form new ones, face to face, at last.

Our stand was buzzing for four days straight, a testament to the fabulous stand design; the hard working Caesarstone team and the availability of what many acclaimed as the ‘best coffee at the NEC’: always delivered with a flourish and a smile.

Proof, again, that Cafe Allez! can deliver the good stuff: with or without Van Henri.

Dear customers,

It’s with a very heavy heart that we’re announcing the closure of Cafe Allez! Belvoir Castle at the end of March.

It’ll soon be 3 years since we (nervously) opened our doors. We would absolutely love to be able to continue our journey at Belvoir, but there is now no opportunity for us to renew our lease.

Our team were informed last week and, like the true professionals they are, have vowed to fight on to the last day, delivering the customer service and quality that you deserve from Cafe Allez!. We have 8 weeks left to serve you in: we intend to make the most of every single day.Continue reading

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