JEB WALLACE-BRODEUR
Ben Colley working on an Italian espresso machine at Down Home Kitchen in Montpelier
46 FOOD
SEVEN DAYS
02.14.18-02.21.18
SEVENDAYSVT.COM
Wizard of Buzz
Meet the repair guy who keeps Vermont’s coffee joints grinding, pressing and perking
O
n a sunny, snowy day in February, Ben Colley, owner of Java Joe’s Coffee + Espresso Equipment Service in Waterbury, is tucked in a back room at the Colchester Costco Wholesale, digging stuck beans and stale grounds out of a Bunn grinder. He tests to make sure the machine is properly calibrated, making small adjustments. Moments after Colley returns the contraption to its spot near the store’s exit, an elderly man in jeans and a gray tweed cap dumps a five-pound bag of beans into the hopper and pushes a button. The burrs whir, and the spigot
BY S UZANNE M. P O D H AIZE R
spits out a mountain of grounds — enough to make about 100 cups of very strong coffee, or 127 double shots of espresso. Just a few minutes after being repaired, the machine is on its way to needing its next service call. When Colley, 39, was growing up in Pennsylvania, and later, when he studied religion and music at the University of Vermont, he never imagined he’d end up repairing coffee equipment. “I didn’t know this job existed,” he says. “You walk into a commercial kitchen and see how many machines there are … They all need maintenance at some point.” Indeed, nearly every restaurant, café,
hotel and gas station has grinding and brewing equipment that will inevitably need repairs, and that makes people like Colley the unsung heroes of our caffeine buzzes. Without their fix-its, it would be hard to get a reliable fix. Because there are few people in his line of work, Colley is willing to drive three hours each way — as far as upstate New York and New Hampshire — to ply his trade. He sells and installs new and used equipment and repairs and recalibrates existing machines. His regular clients include Starbucks, Costco and plenty of small local coffee shops such as Speeder & Earl’s Coffee.
For people who have espresso machines in their kitchens, Colley makes home visits, too. On his way back from the Costco job, Colley decides to swing down the road to Scout & Co. in Winooski for a latte, his second of the day. “I’m a two-to-three-cup-a-day guy,” he says. “I definitely make a latte first thing in the morning. Depending on where I go, I’ll usually have a couple more.” His home espresso maker, Colley says, is a $600 Rancilio from Italy. These days, he often buys his beans from Burlington’s Brio Coffeeworks. “I think they