For one popular café on the south coast, the Covid-19 lockdown provided an opportunity to think about planning for the future. Taking advantage of the time to reflect, Chris Kraszewski, the owner of Carat’s Café Bar in Southwick, decided to revitalise the café and its coffee. What better way to achieve this than by choosing Gaggia Milano’s flagship La Reale traditional coffee machine?
Working in partnership with Domluca for installation, training and ongoing supply of consumables, La Reale has proved an instant hit.
Planning For Economic Recovery
Carat’s Café is an extremely popular beachfront café in Southwick, a vibrant and bustling resort that also captures trade from neighbouring towns, including Brighton and Worthing. With an enviable beachfront location, customers include tourists, dog walkers and cyclists all looking for a welcome break. Serving everything from breakfast to dinner, Carat’s is a fully licensed restaurant where the quality of the coffee is as important as the food.
Re-Investing For Growth
As a tasteful and stylish venue, it is important to Chris Kraszewski that the coffee machine fits with this design. He explains: “We’ve known Paul Ramsey for years. Domluca have been supplying us with all our coffee beans and tea for a long time now. This spring, we knew we needed to reinvest in order to provide the best possible coffee experience for our customers. It’s particularly important now as they return to cafés and restaurants after a time when this just wasn’t possible. Our old machine had served us well but was showing signs of age. When Paul presented us with La Reale as a potential replacement, we jumped at the chance!”
Paul Ramsey, founder of Domluca has been a fan of La Reale since its arrival in the UK in 2019. “Instantly, we could see the potential in the Reale. We work closely with our customers to meet their needs. This is a traditional coffee machine that provides a combination of drink taste, machine design and excellent value for money. It became clear really early on in our conversation that La Reale – complemented by a Gaggia G10 grinder – would help Chris and the team emerge from a really tricky time in a good position to build on – and improve – the excellent reputation they have built in recent years.”
He adds that the G10 Grinder also offers 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 La Reale brilliantly.”
Coffee Excellence
Paul continues: “From our perspective, we have installed many, many coffee machines over the years. I can honestly say that the drink flavour achieved by the Reale is the best we have ever experienced. It also helps that we are able to offer such an advanced machine with an affordable price tag. It’s important that the UK’s cafés and restaurants continue to flourish. I think that La Reale’s modest price gives them an exciting head start on the road to recovery.”
La Reale’s design gives a nod to Gaggia’s long heritage. However, there’s no doubt that it is at the cutting edge of coffee machine technology. Craig Jukes, Evoca UK Sales Director commented: “It’s exciting to see that the UK’s forward-thinking cafés have taken this opportunity to invest. They have taken time to think about how they can enhance what they offer to their customers. We all missed the coffee experience badly during the height of lockdown, so there’s no better way for them to entice people to return than by delivering their favourite coffee from the beautifully designed and iconic La Reale.”
Customers Love The Coffee!
Chris confirms that the Reale is already starting to bring rewards: “This is the first La Reale installed in the Brighton area, so we know already that we have a head start on our competitors. Whilst we all enjoy a friendly rivalry, there’s no doubt in our minds that this machine doesn’t simply look amazing but it creates the best tasting drink we have ever served. With a better and smoother flavour to the coffee we serve, this really is the main benefit of choosing this machine. Our customers love it.”
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