Laila Ghambari grew up around her father’s cafés in Seattle and has held nearly every role in specialty coffee over the last 20 years. She’s the 2014 United States Barista Champion and recently struck out on her own with a coffee consulting business to help smaller cafés learn techniques and processes that she had mastered over the years. Then, an opportunity that was too good to ignore popped up: Ghambari purchased a small chain of coffee bars and a corresponding roastery with her husband and business partner, Ryan Willbur. First item on the to-do list? Upgrade their espresso machines. With its mass-based profiling, straight-in portafilters, and smart saturation, both Ghambari and Willbur knew that the Strada X was the perfect machine for their cafés. They also purchased a new Swan grinder to pair with each new espresso machine. We recently interviewed Ghambari to learn more about their decision to upgrade.

What made you decide to upgrade the espresso machines at Guilder?


When we purchased Guilder, we had three different models of espresso machines between three stores. On top of that, no two grinders were the same between our cafes. As employers, we want to create systems and consistency between our cafes so that our team can be comfortable and make the best coffee possible in whichever space they work in. Our move to upgrade espresso machines was explicitly for the purpose of consistency. On top of that, we wanted to implement technology that helps us to make the best espresso we can and do so repeatedly and quickly.

How long did you consider the upgrade before you decided to pull the trigger?


Not long. We were lucky to take over an already profitable and healthy business. When considering ways we could improve the business, we knew the first step would be to create systems for consistency between the cafes. This equipment upgrade is a major step in that process.

What are some of the challenges that upgrading an espresso machine presents?


New technology can always seem a bit scary, and deep down inside, we’re all creatures of comfort to some extent. Change can just be hard sometimes. In our case, some cafes are moving from using auto volumetrics to brewing using mass. One of our cafes is still using a semi-automatic Linea Classic, and they will be jumping straight to built-in scales and variable pressure. As leaders, we plan to plant ourselves at each location for the week that we place each new espresso machine so that our team always feels supported and has someone nearby to answer any questions.

What goals did you have for the espresso machine upgrade? Do the new machines offer anything that the current setup doesn’t?


We are big believers in variable pressure throughout extraction. Ryan spent a lot of time experimenting with coffee on the original Strada EP, and those experiments sometimes created jaw-dropping espressos. Our goal as a business is to deliver the highest-quality coffee possible. We know that using the Strada X and mass-based pressure profiling will allow us to do this consistently for our customers.

Visit Guilder’s website and follow them on Instagram. 

Visit Laila’s coffee consulting website and follow her on Instagram.