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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Filling A Tall Order Seattle-Area Business Turns Out Custom-Made Espresso Machines For Starbucks

T.M. Sell Seattle Post-Intelligencer

Here’s a sure winner for a coffee-bar bet: Walk into any late-model Starbucks and wager on where the La Marzocco espresso machine was made.

The right answer: Ballard.

It’s true. La Marzocco, chief supplier of espresso machines to Starbucks, assembles the machines in a warehouse just north of the Ballard Bridge.

Most good Norwegian boys from beyond the locks don’t grow up to build espresso machines, but Kent Bakke did. OK, he was born in Wisconsin and grew up in California, but he moved to Ballard as soon as humanly possible. And, faster than you can say, “Double-tall with lutefisk,” he was in the coffee business.

Well, almost. He first ran a restaurant in Pioneer Square, and it had an espresso machine.

“I was not particularly successful in the restaurant business,” confesses the balding, soft-spoken Bakke. “But I liked machines.” Moreover, he was about the only guy in town who could fix them.

That led the nascent coffee Viking to invade Italy in 1978, where he stumbled across La Marzocco in Florence, and soon after Espresso Specialties was importing La Marzocco machines into the United States.

“As Starbucks had a greater need for machines, we spoke to La Marzocco about making them here,” Bakke recalls. “They said, ‘If you want to do that, that’s fine, but you’ll have to buy the company.”’

So Bakke and a small group of partners bought a majority interest in La Marzocco, founded in 1927 by the Bambi family in Florence. Piero Bambi, son and nephew of the founders, has no heirs, and he was happy to work with Bakke. Assembly began in Ballard in 1994, and Bambi remains in Italy as president.

The tall and calm Bakke and the short, bright-eyed Bambi make something of a coffee-machine odd couple, but it has been a successful partnership.

La Marzocco still makes machines in Florence, and ships some parts here for final assembly. Several different Seattle-area firms provide parts for the industrial-strength machines, which have to be able to churn out hundreds of drinks a day, day after day, without fail. Woe to the coffee shop that blows a boiler before noon.

Of course, that’s not likely with a La Marzocco. The Ballard shop hand-welds its own stainless steel, two-chambered boilers.

Europeans almost always drink espresso straight up. Because Americans demand such a high percentage of their espresso drinks with foamed milk, the Ballard shop developed the second steam-producing chamber on its own. (The first chamber heats the water that makes the coffee.)

“They’re working harder than any machines in the world,” said John Blackwell, production supervisor.

Starbucks agrees. Dave Olsen, senior vice president of coffee, said he and Starbucks Chairman Howard Schultz had used La Marzoccos in early ventures, and turned to them when the company began to expand.

“What impressed us was the quality and design,” Olsen said. “The people there were very willing to reconfigure the machines to suit our purposes. Some of the bigger companies were not as open to questions and suggestions.”

La Marzocco probably isn’t the model you want at home, unless you want to spend up to $13,000 for a machine that weighs more than 200 pounds and will make four espresso drinks at a time. Bakke said the company occasionally does sell a smaller machine to someone who can’t live without it.

“We’ve always been a small, artisan company, but with a passion for quality and for coffee,” said Bambi, in town recently to celebrate La Marzocco’s 500th Ballard-built machine. “It’s never been our intention to compete with industrial manufacturers.”

The company has 14 employees in Florence and a half dozen in Seattle. Annual sales are about $5 million. The Seattle shop turns out about 30 machines a month, nearly all of which go to Starbucks.

Bakke’s original firm, Espresso Specialities, still imports several other makes of espresso machines. It did about $6.1 million worth of business last year through about 50 distributors.

MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: FAR-FLUNG ENTERPRISE La Marzocco has 14 employees in Florence and six in Seattle. The Seattle shop turns out about 30 espresso machines a month, nearly all of which go to Starbucks.

This sidebar appeared with the story: FAR-FLUNG ENTERPRISE La Marzocco has 14 employees in Florence and six in Seattle. The Seattle shop turns out about 30 espresso machines a month, nearly all of which go to Starbucks.