01
Instructions
How the file works, what the colours mean, and the two water rules to settle before you place an order. One sheet, read it once.
Cafe Equipment Planner: How Many of Each
What a cafe needs is written up everywhere, and so are the prices. How many of each is not. One group head or two, how many portafilters, how many cups once takeaway is taken out: this workbook answers that from your seats, your busiest day and your menu, then totals your own supplier quotes. Updated September 2026.
- 70 items in nine groups, with quantities calculated from your cafe rather than copied off a list
- Answer "no kitchen" and the whole food group drops to zero, while the chiller for bought-in cakes stays
- Three quote columns per line, and the water rules the law applies to what is in the cup
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Petpooja presents
Cafe Equipment Planner
For Cafes & Coffee Shops in India
70
Items · nine groups
Excel · 5 sheets
What's Inside
Five sheets, and the second one does the arithmetic
02
Cafe Profile
Seats, cups on your busiest day, the share landing in your peak hour, menu style, whether food is on the menu at all, whether you cook it on site, and the takeaway share. Plus the cup mix and four assumptions, all visible and all editable.
03
Equipment List
All 70 items across brewing, grinding, milk, water treatment, refrigeration, food, front of house, cleaning and billing. Each line carries the spec to insist on, a calculated quantity, three quote columns and a day-one or later flag, with six blank rows for anything the list does not carry.
04
Before You Buy
Water, which the law treats as an ingredient rather than a utility, the scale rule if you sell beans by weight, the single-use plastics a cafe may not buy at all, ten questions to put to a supplier in writing before you pay, and the order things have to arrive in.
05
Budget Summary
Totals by group, opening day against later, what share the machine and grinder take, what share water treatment takes, a count of every line you have given a quantity but not yet priced, and what the whole kit costs per seat.
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And it prints as your enquiry
Not a sixth sheet: print the Equipment List and it doubles as the enquiry you send a supplier, with item, specification and quantity set out and three columns waiting for their price.
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Why This Matters
Everyone publishes the list and the price. Almost nobody publishes the quantity
Our own cafe equipment guide lists what you need and what it costs, with ranges checked against vendor quotes from real cafe onboardings. Use it for the going rate. What it cannot tell you, because it depends on a cafe the writer has never seen, is how many of each you should be buying.
That is not a small gap. One group head or two is the single biggest fork in a cafe build, and it is not decided by your budget or your floor area. It is decided by how many cups land in your busiest hour. Two hundred and fifty cups a day with a fifth of them in the morning rush is fifty cups in an hour, which one group head covers. Move the rush to half the day and the same cafe needs three.
Underneath that sit a dozen quantities nobody writes down. Two portafilters per group head, so one is always knocked out and clean. Four steaming jugs per group head, so one is always rinsed. Crockery sized from seats, not from cups sold, and then reduced by whatever share of your cups goes out in paper. This file works all of it out from six answers, and shows the arithmetic so you can argue with it.
The kitchen question is the other fork. Answer "no food cooked on site" and the whole food group drops to zero: no griller, no oven, no prep table, and no exhaust hood, which is building work rather than a purchase. Outsourcing the bakery is a real strategy, and the file prices both versions in about a minute.
On prices, this does not compete with the guide. You enter up to three supplier quotes a line and the sheet takes the lowest, totals it by group, and splits what must be paid for before opening day from what can follow. If you want a top-down figure first, the cafe startup cost calculator gives you one from size and city, and the full cost breakdown covers rent, staff and licences as well as kit.
Two lines get underbought almost every time. The grinder, because the machine is the exciting purchase and the grinder is the one that actually decides the shot. And water treatment, which is invisible until a boiler scales up, and which the law has a firm opinion about.
Running a different format? The same planner, sized for what that format actually buys: bar equipment planner, bakery equipment planner and the cloud kitchen equipment planner.
Sample Preview
What the file works out for a 30-seat espresso bar
Here's a preview of what you'll get inside:
You enter: 30 seats, 250 cups on your busiest
day, a fifth of them in the peak hour, an espresso-led menu, no food cooked on site, 40%
takeaway
The machine: 50 cups in the peak hour, so one
group head. Move the rush and that number moves with it
Brewing and milk: 2 portafilters and 4
steaming jugs, scaled to the group head rather than to the shop
Crockery: 60 pieces across six shapes, sized
from seats and reduced by the takeaway share, with the breakage buffer built in
Beans: 3.8 kg on that day, which is what sizes
the grinder and the airtight storage, not the machine
... plus the whole food group at zero because this cafe buys its
bakery in, the specification to insist on for every line, the water rules in full, and ten
questions to put to a supplier in writing. Every figure above moves when you change the
profile.
Key Numbers
Three things worth knowing before you order
An ingredient
On a licence, Part II of Schedule 4 requires that only potable water be used as an ingredient in processing and cooking. In a cafe, water is most of what is in the cup. On registration, Part I is shorter but still requires potable water and a continuous supply of it.
Source: Schedule 4, Part II, Food Safety and Standards (Licensing and Registration) Regulations, 2011A register
On a licence, water storage tanks have to be cleaned periodically and the cleaning recorded in a register. Not just clean tanks, a written record. It is the line almost nobody keeps, and Part I, which covers registered petty businesses, does not ask for it at all.
Source: Schedule 4, Part II, water supply requirementsPeak hour
Group heads are decided by the cups landing in your busiest hour, not by your seats, your floor area or your budget. Size the machine against the rush and the rest of the day looks after itself.
Source: the quantity method built into the workbook
Common Mistakes
7 buying mistakes that show up in the first month
01
Buying the machine before you know the peak hour
A two-group machine in a cafe that never passes fifty cups an hour is money parked in a counter. A one-group machine in a cafe with a real morning rush is a queue. The cups in your busiest hour decide it, and that is a number you can estimate before you sign anything.
02
Spending on the machine and saving on the grinder
The grinder decides the shot more than the machine does, and a grinder that drifts costs you a drink every few minutes. The Budget Summary shows what share of your spend the two take together, so you can see if the split is sensible.
03
Treating water as plumbing rather than as an ingredient
Untreated water scales a boiler and voids more warranties than anything else, and the food safety regulations treat the water in the cup as an ingredient. Test the inlet water before you choose a filter, not after the machine arrives.
04
Clean tanks, no register
If you hold a licence, the rule is not only that storage tanks are cleaned periodically. It is that the cleaning is recorded in a register. Start it the day the tank goes in, and keep it with your hygiene audit records. On registration, Part I does not ask for the register, so check your tier before you assume either way.
05
Sizing crockery from cups sold
Crockery is sized from seats, not from the day's cups, because a cup is always on a table, in the wash, or on the shelf. Then you take out whatever share goes out in paper. Sizing it from the day's cups buys a cupboard nobody opens.
06
Adding the kitchen after the fit-out
The griller and the oven are purchases. The exhaust hood and its ducting are building work, and retrofitting them costs more than the equipment. Decide whether you cook on site before the counter is built, not after.
07
Budgeting the kit and forgetting what counts it
A cafe loses margin in grams and millilitres: an extra gram in every dose, a syrup pump nobody rings up, a refill given away. That is inventory shrinkage, and on a drink that is mostly milk and beans it moves your food cost faster than price changes do. The food cost calculator works the recipe side of it.
Comparison
A cafe equipment list vs this planner
| Aspect | A good equipment list | With this planner |
|---|---|---|
| What to buy | Covered, usually well | Covered, in nine groups by where it sits during service |
| What it costs | Covered, with published ranges | Your own three quotes a line, lowest taken automatically |
| How many of each | Not answered | Calculated from seats, peak hour and menu |
| One group head or two | Left to you | Worked out from the cups in your busiest hour |
| No kitchen | Mentioned as an option | Switches the whole food group to zero |
| Water rules | Filter listed as equipment | Potable water by tier, and the tank register where it applies |
| Talking to suppliers | You write the enquiry yourself | The sheet prints as the enquiry, with the spec attached |
Swipe the table sideways to see the full comparison.
Work out how many, before you call a supplier
Download the free planner, answer seven questions, and let it size the list for your cafe.
FAQ
Frequently asked questions
One group head or two?
Work it from the cups in your busiest hour, not from seats or floor area.
Take the cups you expect on your busiest day, take the share landing in the peak hour,
and divide by what one group head can realistically pull and serve in an hour including
milk. The planner defaults that last number to 50 and lets you change it, because a slow
menu or a new barista moves it a long way. On the default settings, 250 cups a day with a
fifth in the rush comes to one group head; the same cafe with half its day in one hour
needs three.
How much does it cost to equip a cafe in India?
Our guide to what a cafe costs to kit out answers that properly, with ranges by format checked
against vendor quotes collected during real cafe onboardings. This planner deliberately
does not repeat those numbers. It does the part a published range cannot: how many of
each your cafe needs, and what your own three suppliers will charge you for exactly that
list. Use both, in that order.
Does a cafe need a full kitchen?
Not if the food comes in. The planner splits the question in two, because displaying
food and cooking it are different decisions. Food on the menu at all keeps the display
chiller, the microwave and the probe thermometer, since bought-in cakes still have to be
held cold and reheated properly. Food cooked on site is the expensive half: answer no and
the griller, the oven, the prep table and the exhaust hood all drop to zero, and the hood
is the one that hurts, because it is building work rather than a purchase. You can price
both builds side by side before the counter is made.
What do the food safety rules say about water in a cafe?
More than most owners expect, and which rules bind you depends on your FSSAI tier.
Schedule 4 of the licensing regulations has a Part I for petty food businesses
applying for registration, and a Part II for those applying for a licence, with Part V
applying on top of Part II for catering and food service. Our guide to
FSSAI registration and licensing for a cafe covers which tier you fall into. Part I requires that the water
used be potable and that a continuous supply of potable water be ensured, with adequate
storage where the supply is intermittent. Part II goes further: only potable water may be
used as an ingredient in processing and cooking, which in a cafe is most of what you
sell; ice and steam in direct contact with food must be made from potable water, which
covers your steam wand and your ice machine; water storage tanks must be cleaned
periodically with the cleaning recorded in a register; and where non-potable water feeds
equipment that does not touch food, its pipes must be clearly distinguished. Part I asks
for none of the last three.
Our FSSAI compliance checklist covers the wider licence side. This is general
guidance on the hygiene requirements and not legal advice; your licensing authority is
the one to confirm what applies to your premises.
Does my weighing scale need government stamping?
It depends on what the scale decides. A dosing scale behind the machine,
used only to make the drink, is not a measure used in trade. A scale that weighs beans
into a bag for a customer is, and section 24 of the Legal Metrology Act, 2009 requires a
measure to be verified and stamped before it is put into use, arranged through your state
legal metrology department. Section 33 sets a fine of not less than ₹2,000 and up
to ₹10,000 for using an unverified one, with imprisonment of up to a year possible
on a second offence; both Jan Vishwas Acts also raise fines by ten per cent of the
minimum every three years, so confirm the current figure. A scale bought online does not
arrive stamped. This is general guidance and not legal advice.
About Petpooja
Petpooja is India's leading SME business software suite, trusted by 1,50,000+ businesses across restaurants, retail, healthcare, manufacturing, and more. From billing and payroll to task management and procurement, Petpooja helps Indian businesses run better, every day.
Know what was poured against what was sold
Petpooja POS deducts stock item by item as you bill, sends low-stock alerts and produces day-end inventory reports, so the gap between the beans you bought and the cups you sold shows up the same week rather than at the month's count.
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