Why some cafes are skipping the espresso machine altogether

Not every cafe wants to be a coffee shop first.

Cross Section is a good example. Brent and Josh built the place around food, and when it came to coffee, they were upfront about it: making espresso well wasn't where their interest or their time was going. Rather than running a machine they didn't want to commit to, they went a different way entirely. No espresso machine, no grinder, no daily dial in. Cold brew concentrate on tap instead.

It's a setup more cafes are starting to consider, especially ones where coffee isn't the main act.

The problem with running an espresso machine you don't love

An espresso machine is a commitment. Someone needs to dial it in every morning, adjust for humidity, taste test, recalibrate. Done properly, it's basically a second job sitting inside the first one. For a kitchen focused cafe, that's a lot of attention going somewhere that isn't the food.

Cross Section felt that gap directly. Coffee needed to work, but it didn't need to be the thing they obsessed over.

What cold brew on tap actually changes

Cold brew concentrate on tap removes the variables that make espresso hard to manage day to day. There's no grind size to chase, no extraction time to babysit, no machine maintenance schedule. The concentrate is brewed off site, dialled in once, and poured consistently every time, hot or cold, milk or black.

For a business like Cross Section, that meant one less thing to manage and one more thing that was reliably good, every single day, regardless of who was on shift.

The unexpected result

The most telling sign it worked isn't a number, it's the regulars that keep showing up. When I asked Josh and Brent if they'd had any fallout from their decision, Brent told me, "in this initial stages there were a few disappointed customers, but over time, the ones that were disappointed did come back and try our new alternative options, and we've found that they actually come back more often than they used to". 

Is cold brew on tap right for your cafe?

It's worth considering for cafes where coffee needs to be reliable but isn't the main offering. Food led venues, high volume settings, or anywhere a full barista setup isn't the priority. It won't replace a milk based menu entirely, but for black coffee and iced drinks, it solves a lot of the daily friction that comes with running an espresso machine.

Black Market Coffee supplies cold brew concentrate to a handful of cafes taking this approach, Cross Section among them.