The Workshop on Dorfanger
Our workshop is in Sachsenhausen, one of the quieter districts of Oranienburg. Am Dorfanger 6 — a workshop building with yard access, parking right outside, and no parking-ticket hassle. Anyone who's ever tried hauling a 30-kilo machine to a workshop in central Berlin knows why that matters.
We take machines in person — Nicola, Paul, or Luca, whichever of us isn't out on a job at the time. That means: at drop-off we look at the machine, you tell us what it does and doesn't do, and we note down make, model, year, symptom. Where possible, we start an initial diagnosis right away. If it's clearly a standard case (replacing a gasket, servicing the brew group), you can often have a cost estimate over the phone an hour later.
Drop-off Hours: by appointment — call or email ahead
Outside drop-off hours we're often still working — repairs happen, it's just that personal drop-off isn't guaranteed then. If you need to bring a machine in on a weekday after 6pm or on a Sunday: send a quick email, we'll find a time.
We take emergency calls 24/7. That applies to hospitality businesses, not home machines. If your café in Oranienburg, Hennigsdorf, or Bernau won't start up in the morning: one call is enough.
Service Area Around Oranienburg
We regularly travel to:
- Oberhavel: Oranienburg, Hennigsdorf, Velten, Birkenwerder, Mühlenbeck, Liebenwalde, Zehdenick, Gransee
- Barnim: Bernau, Wandlitz, Eberswalde, Werneuchen
- North Berlin: Frohnau, Hermsdorf, Tegel, Reinickendorf, Pankow
- Northern Brandenburg: Neuruppin, Templin, Fürstenberg, Rheinsberg — for hospitality jobs with advance notice
Travel is charged as a flat rate per kilometer, communicated clearly in advance. For home customers outside Oranienburg, the pickup service for a flat fee is often worth it — especially for large machines like the LM Linea Mini, ECM Synchronika, or E61 dual-boiler machines that nobody wants to wrestle into their own trunk.
What Comes In, What Goes Out
Throughout the day we get: home espresso machines from private households in Berlin and Brandenburg, café machines from emergency call-outs, vintage gems for restoration, grinders for tuning, occasionally demo machines from dealers. Also machines via our shipping service across the DACH region, when someone wants their favorite piece from Hamburg or Munich repaired by us.
What we don't take: fully automatic machines (Jura, DeLonghi, Krups, Saeco), capsule machines, French presses, drip coffee makers. That's not snobbery, it's specialization. Jump at everything and you end up doing nothing really well.
Diagnosis, Fixed Price, Your Call
We work like this: the machine comes in, we diagnose it, you get an honest assessment. Either a fixed price (standard case) or a cost ceiling (complex case with an unclear outcome). We only start once you've given the go-ahead. If a repair isn't worth it — old machine, parts pricier than a good used replacement — we'll tell you straight. Sometimes a machine ends up staying with us for a restoration, sometimes it goes home unchanged.
Annual Maintenance, Worth It
For home machines with a purchase value above 1,500 euros, we recommend annual maintenance: brew group service, gasket replacement, checking the filter basket and portafilter, testing the pressure gauge, descaling if needed. A neglected machine ends up costing you sooner or later — a well-maintained one runs for 15 years and tastes just as good every day as it did on day one.
For hospitality businesses we recommend 6-month intervals (heavy use) or maintenance contracts with fixed inspection dates. It also pays off on your taxes.
Maisto Caffè Under the Same Roof
We're the workshop sibling of Maisto Caffè — Nicola's coffee roastery. That means: if your espresso still doesn't taste right after maintenance, sometimes it's not the machine, it's the coffee or the grind. We can tell the difference. Specialty beans, advice on grind size and brew parameters, taste sessions on your own machine — all part of the package.
Why Oranienburg as a Workshop Location
At first glance, Oranienburg seems like an odd choice for a workshop whose main business is in Berlin. In practice it's an advantage: quiet location, affordable workshop rent, storage and parking space, none of the noise and stress of a Berlin workshop. The result is a clean workbench, organized parts shelves, and calm diagnostics instead of assembly-line repairs.
The 35 kilometers to central Berlin are less far than some people think. Outside rush hour, the A111 is a fast route — in the early morning hours, exactly when hospitality emergency callouts happen, it's doable in 35–40 minutes. We cover northern Brandenburg along the way too: Eberswalde, Neuruppin, Templin all sit on our normal routes.
If you want to bring your machine in yourself from Berlin: the S1 runs directly from Friedrichstraße to Oranienburg, then it's a 10-minute bus or taxi ride to Dorfanger. Fine for smaller machines (Pavoni, ECM Casa, Lelit Anna); for the heavyweights, we recommend the pickup service.