Café Kitchen Equipment: Boost Your Bottom Line

Are you searching for something new to boost your bottom line and bring people back to your café or coffee shop? It could be as easy as adding one new piece of café kitchen equipment, like a versatile soft serve ice cream machine. Nothing brings people together like delicious, silky soft serve ice cream, gelato, and unique desserts.

There’s also a nostalgic trend in milkshake and malt sales, and a high demand for smoothies, frozen coffee, and other frozen drinks.

Are you ready to learn how you can increase sales at your café and coffee shop with new commercial kitchen equipment?

In modern times, it’s never been as important as it is right now to differentiate your café and get customers not just through the door, but coming back for more.

Woman with a hat sitting at a cafe table with a frozen coffee

How Does New Café Kitchen Equipment Increase Revenue?

Did you know gross margins for fruit smoothies run around 40%? Soft serve ice cream can produce over 85% profit and a frozen carbonated beverage program can provide up to 70% gross profit.

When you add menu items that have 40, 70, or even 85% profit margins, increasing revenue and achieving ROI on the new café kitchen equipment is easy.

Let’s look at a real-life example.

  • The cost/ounce of vanilla ice cream mix plus the cup and spoon is 43 cents (.33 without cup/spoon).
  • If you sell a single serving of vanilla ice cream with a paper cup and spoon for $2.99, gross profit on that item is $2.56. Without the cup and spoon, say you serve it in a glass bowl with a washable spoon, the profit is now $2.66/dessert.
  • If you sell 20 per day at $2.56 gross profit, you will earn an extra $1534 per month, and recoup the cost of the machine in as few as 8 months.
  • If you sell 40 per day at $2.99, you can get an ROI in as little as 6 months.
  • These ROI calculations do not include additional items customers may purchase (coffee, tea, muffin, sandwich, etc.) while they’re in your café or coffee shop to get an ice cream, milkshake, or dessert item.

The added bonus is how easy soft serve delicacies, milkshakes, frozen drinks, and smoothies are to make and dispense (you can serve a thick shake in three seconds!) with the right commercial equipment, making labor costs negligible.

Frozen drinks can provide up to 70% gross profit and soft-serve ice cream a whopping 85%!

6 Ways High-Quality, State-Of-The-Art Soft Serve, Frozen Drink & Smoothie Machines Can Increase Revenue In Your Café

Other than straight-up gross profit per menu item, there are six other ways adding a state-of-the-art, high-quality soft serve, milkshake, frozen drink, or smoothie machine to your café or coffee shop can increase total shop revenue.

  1. Build customer loyalty. Whether you primarily sell coffee, tea, baked goods, and light snacks or your business is a full-service café, serving high-quality food and beverages customers can depend on builds loyalty.
  2. Increase traffic. New menu items can refresh even the most loved café menu and bring new people through your door while keeping regulars coming back for more.
  3. Create efficiency in your processes. Today’s smart-technology commercial kitchen equipment allows you to increase output and serve customers faster without sacrificing quality.
  4. Reduce labor costs. Not only are soft serve, frozen beverage, and commercial smoothie machines fast, they’re user-friendly and cost-efficient to run, clean, and maintain, reducing labor when compared to non-commercial equipment.
  5. Upsell. When a customer asks for their “usual” now you can offer them a house-specialty frozen coffee, soft serve on the side of a warm blueberry muffin, or a frozen coconut drink on a hot summer’s day.
  6. Gain a competitive advantage. Instead of watching would-be customers hit the nearest QSR, get creative! Refresh menu items seasonally or quarterly and develop crave-worthy signature menu items that can’t be found anywhere else.

Recommended Kitchen Equipment for Cafés & Coffee Shops

The following Taylor Company café kitchen machines are affordable, space-saving, and easy to use with solid-state controls that precisely monitor temperature to maintain consistent quality. They each feature a standby mode that maintains safe product temperature in the mix hopper and freezing cylinder, and indicator lights to alert staff when to add mix.

Each piece of commercial equipment you see here has its own unique features and benefits; please click on the links for greater detail.

Soft Serve Ice Cream Machines

Taylor Company C707

Taylor Company Model 707 single flavor, countertop soft serve freezer is our most popular machine for small to mid-size food service operations. It’s just the right size for any establishment and any budget. It holds four quarts in the freezing cylinder and offers all the popular soft serve variations from low-fat and nonfat ice creams to custards, yogurts, and sorbets.

For a floor model that serves two separate soft serve flavors or an equal combination of both in a twist, take a look at the Taylor Company Model 791. For a two-flavor countertop freezer with optional floor cart, Model C161 is also a great choice.

Milkshake Machine

Taylor Company Model 441 is a space-saving commercial milkshake machine with a beater design that dispenses a 16 fl. oz. (473 ml) serving in approximately 3 seconds to serve customers faster. Better than any blender on the market, you can serve a wide variety of single-flavor frozen desserts, smoothies, and thick shakes, while keeping dairy products at safe temperatures.

Combination Ice Cream, Milkshake, Smoothie Machine

Taylor Company Model 632 is a combination machine with a single

Taylor Company Model 632

milkshake, smoothie, or malted flavor (7 qt.) and single soft serve flavor (3.4 qt) side-by-side. This floor model offers all the popular milkshake and soft serve variations, from traditional milkshakes and flavorful smoothies to a variety of ice cream, custard, yogurt, and sorbet.

Frozen Drink & Slushie Machine

Taylor Company Model 428 offers maximum versatility in this extremely quiet, compact, self-contained frozen drink and slushie machine. With this commercial freezer, you can mix up your menu and offer shakes, smoothies, frozen cocktails, fruit juices, coffees, cappuccinos, teas, and any other type of slushie you can imagine, all served at the desired thickness. A clear, plastic door merchandises the product in the making, inspiring impulse sales.

Why Choose Taylor Company Café Kitchen Equipment?

Taylor Company, the worldwide standard in high-quality, smart soft serve, milkshake, frozen beverage, and dessert machines since 1926, offers dozens of ice cream and frozen dessert freezer options for any size business and budget. There are also financing options.

With attractive, streamlined Taylor Company café kitchen equipment, you’ll never have to worry about quality. You can enjoy peace of mind knowing your machine is backed by the soft-serve industry’s leading manufacturer and serviced by local factory-certified technicians with genuine Taylor Company parts should the need arise.

Frozen drink in a pretty glass on a bar with a cafe or restaurant in background

Ready to Add a New Profit Center to Your Café & Coffee Shop with Taylor Company Equipment?

Sharing a beverage and great food with friends, family, neighbors, and peers has new meaning, that’s why it’s a great idea for your café and coffee shop to think creatively to get people in the door with unique, high-quality food and beverage items they can’t get anywhere else. An investment in Taylor Company soft serve and frozen drink equipment will provide gross profits and individuality you’ll not obtain with many other food types.

If your café or coffee shop is in California or Nevada, Taylor Freezers of California ensures you purchase the best kitchen equipment for your business and provides personal service, installation, staff training, menu and pricing assistance, cleaning programs, local 24/7/364 troubleshooting, maintenance, and parts and repair services.

Stop by one of our five showrooms to try Taylor Company soft serve, milkshake, and frozen drink machines for yourself, or contact our helpful team today for a no-obligation conversation. 800-927-7704