Nuova Simonelli - Oscar II

If you're starting a business, I would not go with anything consumer, especially breville. Not saying they don't make great machines, but they're not rated for commercial duty. I would recommend a Nuova Simonelli Oscar II, which is a far more suitable solution with a commercial duty cycle rating and very close to your budget. The interface is simple and it's built like a tank. It's programmable and can steam and brew simultaneously. The form-factor is very accommodating to cafe workflows. The steam wand is a beast, pro lever-style control (modulated) which is a real pleasure to use. I've used this NS machines before and they're all very good. Do some googling. It's one of the least expensive entry points for a commercial espresso. ps. If you're willing to up your budget, the Musica is a step up with volumetric dosing and a hot water tap. Higher up the price range, La Spaziale makes some affordable commercial espresso machines under 4K. Anyway it's up to you.. Just remember, it's an investment, so don't compromise with a machine meant for the home. As they say, "poor man pays twice".

Contrary to this sub, I think there are a lot of good options und er 1000€ thats give a great uplift from the Bambino. If you are mainly into Milk Drinks a NS Oscar II might be an Option (choose one with OPV). If you want to mod the machine and go into profiling a Gaggiuino Modded Gaggia Classic is a great choice. If you want reliable quality espresso shots a Profitec Go is great. If you want the flexibility of a dual boiler, Lelit Elizabeth is great. All of them offer a better build and better temperature stability than the Bambino and deliver more consistent shots.

Mainly you get consistenty, build quality and better steaming performance. Potentially you get flow/pressure control or profiling. Best price-to-performance dual boiler is probably Lelit Elizabeth, also heats up fairly quickly for Dual Boiler machine. GCP or Siliva are great if you are looking into modding them with PID and Profiling functionality, otherwise go for a PID controlled machine directly, like Lelit Anna (PL41TEM) or Profitec Go. In lattes you likely don't notice a difference in cup quality. Milk smoothes everything out and you tend to use darker roasts which are easier as well. For a decent priced hx-machine you can take a look at ACM Pratika or Nuova Simonelli Oscar II. Both are great machines if you drink a lot of latte.

Everyone is telling you to get a bean to cup machine, but I think it depends a lot on your company and who works there. I work at a big tech company, and we have plenty of manual Simonellis and LMs which seem very popular. I think there are instructions available for people to learn how to use them. That said, we also have bean-to-cup machines for people who don’t want to learn to manually pull shots. 

I have owned several machines of different boiler configurations over the years. I currently have a dual boiler at home (Profitec Pro 700) and a single boiler (Gaggia Classic w/ Gaggimate PID) at work. If you’re doing 1 drink at a time, single boiler is totally fine and the time it takes to be ready to steam isn’t bad at all especially if you use that time to prep your milk or do some cleaning. The dual boiler is really nice for making drinks for multiple people and the steam power is just better. I have owned a HX machine in the past (NS Oscar) and the steam was amazing, but the lack of PID on that machine made it harder to get temps in the right ballpark and coffee was probably over extracted most of the time. A newer HX machine with more temperature control might be a solid option, but there are so many good options for less expensive dual boiler machines (Lelit Elizabeth for example) that I think make HX machines a little harder to recommend at the moment.

I’d continue saving more. 5 grand for a commercial capable setup is gonna get you some haggard nuova simonelli or la spaziale that’s seen better days. You can find rebuilt La Marzocco linea classics (assuming you have access to 220 volt) for 6-10 grand. Have a tech run through it and tune it up. Grab a mazzer Kony/ super jolly or major used for another grand and you’ll be dialed with workhorse gear for 10-12 grand based on your budgeting.

La Marzocco Lineas are workhorses. They're nice because they have that saturated group head and dual boilers. But there's nothing wrong with Rancilios, Nuova Simonellis, etc. At our coffeehouse we used a Rancilio for five years before we upgraded to a Linea. The main reason we did was that occasionally we would run out of steam when we were very busy. But we were doing more than 30 pulls per hour. You're mostly going to be making milk drinks, many of them involving syrups, so the goal is consistency, repeatability, and good quality. If you work with a good roaster, especially one that offers maintenance services to wholesale customers, ask them first. One of the used Lineas that I bought was sitting in the basement of a wine store because the owner had changed their mind, got a good deal. Another was at a bookstore in Boston that had just gone out of business. I found about both of these from our sales guy at Intelligentsia. They have an incentive to help you as you'll be buying beans from them. Some roasters will even lend you a machine, at least they used to. I sold my coffeehouse in 2019, so I've been out of the game for a few years. At our coffeehouse, our drip brewers and drip grinder were lent to us by our roaster. If that doesn't yield anything, I would try cold calling espresso techs. They tend to know where disused commercial machines are located. Cut them in on the deal. If/when you succeed, try to have a tech look at the machine before you purchase it. Send them to it and get a report. Make sure, especially, that the boilers are in good shape. Replacing boilers is expensive. You don't want any surprises. For a grinder, get a Mazzer Super Jolly or similar. I don't know if $5k is possible these days. I'd feel confident you could do it if this were 2013 or so, but I don't know the market any more.

I would take the simonello, get it dialed in, and rarely change things so it's relatively dialed in in-between usage. You would want to check to make sure shots are pulling correctly before first use on the daily and make small tweaks if necessary, but if you're using the same machine, grinder, and beans, keeping things in parameter should be relatively easy  If you're working in a semi commercial setting, the vast majority of coffee drinkers will be drip or milk based beverages. Milk beverages are far more forgiving toward mediocre shots--evem bad shots.  Rarely do people order straight espresso as a single or doppio. Realistically, you'll need to make sure your machines are maintained properly and that your baristas know how to steam milk correctly. As a side note, you do not need to be able to create latte art to make a delicious beverage.  If there is no dedicated barista to make drinks, I'd probably go full automatic and make sure the machine is properly maintained.

I own a coffee shop and love making espresso there when I'm working, using a Nuova Simonelli machine with a great steam wand and everything set up for fast efficient workflow. At home, I go between a l'Or pod machine, a Moka Pot, French Press, and one day I'll add a V60 Switch to the collection to experiment with Pour Overs. When going for a leisurely drive with my wife, we grab a sugary fun flavored frappe loaded with whipped cream and caramel chocolate drizzles and crumbled cookies sprinkled on top, at one of the many shops around here that specialize in that kind of thing. I don't make that kind of thing at home or my shop so that's $12-15 I'm not saving. When my wife wants to go on a date, it's usually at a coffee shop. It's a different experience than making it yourself and sitting in the kitchen. My point is that, just because you CAN make it yourself, and maybe what you make yourself is "better," it doesn't mean you will ALWAYS make it for yourself. Don't look at it from 100% cost perspective. For cost, my $10 Moka Pot is the best $10 I ever spent. If I couldn't afford anything else, I would have a Moka Pot and live a happy life. But, for the joy of learning a new skill, and developing a new hobby that can be upgraded and improved and refined for as much money as your credit card will allow, a higher end espresso machine is a lot of fun. You will become so automatic and efficient at using it that it doesn't really take much more effort than a Pod machine.

If you want reliable, decent drinks with almost no training go superautomatic (Jura etc.), they cut out most user errors. But if you can really train that one person and care about top-notch espresso, the Nuova Simonelli will make better shots — juste plus de taf. For an onboarding area I’d lean superauto for consistency.