Gaggia UK’s unique ‘forever customer care’ puts us in line for 2 national awards
 
Gaggia UK has been shortlisted for two of the UK’s most prestigious customer service awards.

We’ve been shortlisted in the Institute of Customer Service awards for the Customer Focus Award for small and medium businesses and the Commitment Award B2C for our unique ‘forever customer care’ policy.

We are instantly accessible on Zoom and phone all day, helping anyone with a Gaggia coffee machine long after the warranty has run out.

People contacting us for help or advice speak immediately to someone from the company and they can do that either on the phone or by coming straight through on Zoom.

Our service for people who are deaf or hard of hearing is exceptional as we’ll arrange for a sign language expert to join online so deaf people can communicate directly with our team.

We’ve fully embraced Artificial Intelligence and introduced our own chatbot that’s simply called VAR and asked our customers to email in the questions they’d like VAR to answer. More than 2,000 came in and now the answers have been programmed into VAR it’s probably the most advanced AI chatbot in the coffee industry.

Gaggia UK’s ratings on TrustPilot are virtually all five-star with excellent testimonials being posted on the internet just about every day.

Managing director Raj Beadle says: “We can’t think of another organisation that provides the same level of free customer care out of warranty and instant accessibility that we do. We view these awards as the best in Britain for customer service so we are delighted to be shortlisted in two categories, especially as we are up against some big names.”

The Commitment Award B2C sees Gaggia pitched against the Nationwide Building Society, Cirencester Friendly Society, Pension Insurance Corporation and the National Records of Scotland which preserves and publishes information about Scotland’s people and history.
The Customer Focus Award shortlist includes Mazuma mobile phone recycling service, Carmoola car finance company, top quality bathroom equipment company Geberit and Personal Group insurance.

Raj adds: “Our concept is simple yet highly effective, using Zoom to provide quick and efficient customer care which we call Forever Customer Care as it continues after the warranty ends.

“When customers contact a company they want an instant response - someone to pick up the phone and talk to them immediately - yet how many businesses actually do this? With most, the caller has to endure digital call handling systems that have them pressing this button, then another and another before subjecting them to awful muzak before the call is finally answered or, worse, gets cut off when they’ve been waiting for it to be answered for ages.

“At Gaggia UK people can contact us immediately by phone, chat or zoom and are instantly talking to a person from the business. It’s amazing how many customers are surprised and even shocked by that.”

Raj adds: “If the member of staff can’t resolve the problem straightaway then the customer is immediately referred to an engineer who will join the Zoom or phone call.

“This means that if they have a problem with a coffee machine they can show us the problem and we can give instant advice there and then and guide them on how to fix it as many of the issues can be quickly solved.

“It also saves the time, effort, money and the environment of needlessly sending a machine  back to us when it can be quickly sorted online. If a part needs replacing we can get it ordered and delivered straight to the customer and then talk them through how to fit it.

“The number of coffee machines sent back to us for repairs, servicing or upgrades has halved since we introduced Zoom into our customer service.”

In 2003 Gaggia UK was granted Cool Brand Leader status by The Brand Council which put the company alongside the likes of Aston Martin, Chanel, Royal Doulton, Bang and Olufsen, Jaguar Cars, Lambretta, Vespa, Moet & Chandon, Selfridges and Xbox.

This is because Gaggia machines – the first ever coffee machines in the UK 75 years ago - have changed the way coffee was made forever and continues to be a brand leader.

When Soho was the centre of the coffee world in the mid-1950s
 
Gaggia coffee machines revolutionised society in the 1950s with Soho in London leading the way as the birthplace of British espresso culture.

This year marks 75 since the first Gaggia coffee machines arrived in the UK and Gaggia UK has unearthed news stories and adverts from that time capturing the excitement behind the new craze.

The place that’s widely accepted as starting it all was the Moka Bar in Frith Street. This was somewhere teenagers too young for pubs could gather and is thought by some to have prompted the youth culture explosion that soon changed social life in Britain forever.

In those early days a few were begrudging coffee fans such as the author John Sutherland, who recalls: “The Gaggia machine, a great burbling, wheezing, spluttering monster would excrete some bitter caffeinated essence. It would be swamped with steamed-milk foam and dusted with chocolate to form its ‘cappuccino’ hood. Glass cups and brown sugar (lots of it) were de rigueur.  Frankly, 50s espresso was no taste thrill but it felt smart as hell.”

Well, Gaggia’s certainly a taste thrill these days with a wide range of state-of-the-art machines ideal for use in people’s own homes.

Journalist Frank Jackson wrote in the 1950s: “The honour of being the very first espresso bar in London is proudly, fiercely and appropriately claimed by Soho’s Moka in Frith Street. They certainly started something.

“Ever since, espresso bars have mushroomed up in all the more cosmopolitan districts of the Smoke.

“The espresso bars have brought back to London a leisurely sociability which was in danger of being lost. You can sit as long as you like over your cup of coffee without being chivvied.

“Out of those weird machines like huge, gleaming table radios with knobs on comes a good, strong brew which Continental visitors can recognise as coffee.”

Frank sure had a way with words with his descriptions of the folk you’d meet at Moka and the nearby Bar Italia which is still going strong today.

He added: “At the Moka you can brush up on your Italian as you try, rather desperately, to eavesdrop on voluble conversations which seem to bear small relation to the neat systems of the grammar books.

“Further north up Frith Street is Bar Italia whose customers are also mainly Italian, but more proletarian. There’s a jukebox to help the unbuttoned atmosphere.”

He then talks about The Marrakesh in Rupert Street that he says is “one of Soho’s classier joints and, in the evening after the show, is a favoured haunt of the gay young things.

“Small and friendly is Times Square in Newport Court. There you can often hear muscle boys gravely discussing the finder points of their lats and pecs.”

Gaggia coffee had taken off so much that Gaggia even had a showroom at its own Gaggia House at 10 Dean Street in Soho.

Fellow journalist Elwyn Jones saw coffee as an art form.

“All have decors that have been deliberately designed and which are consistently stimulating and alive,” he wrote. “They are, as it were, three dimensional stage backdrops with the people and the food and the coffee real, not faked.

“The bright lights of the coffee machine dominate them.”
So, for the sake of nostalgia, here’s a list of the 20-plus bars in Soho that served coffee from Gaggia espresso machines in those bygone days of the mid-50s.
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San Marco, Lexington Street
La Ronde, Poland Street
The Gargoyle Club, Meard Street
The Mandrake Club, Meard Street
The Marrakesh, Rupert Street
The Tahiti Club, Shaftesbury Avenue,
The K&K, Macclesfield Street
The Can Can, Hanway Street
The Moulin Rouge, Hanway Street
Moka Bar, Frith Street
Pinocchio, Frith Street
Times Square, Newport Court
The Kaleidoscope, Gerrard Street,
La Fiesta, Gerrard Street,
The Chapingo, Peter Street,
Orlando’s, Old Compton Street
The Two I’s, Old Compton Street
Prego, Old Compton Street
The Moka-ris, Dean Street,
Court Snack Bar, Dean Street
Daniellis, Dean Street
Number 93, Dean Street
The Fresserie, Berwick Street
Sabrina, Wardour Street
Café Britannique, Wardour Street
Capitelli, Beak Street

How Gaggia sparked the start of the coffee revolution in the UK 75 years ago

​It’s a major milestone in the Gaggia story and intrinsically linked with a legendary part of one of London’s best-known districts.

This year, 2025, marks 75 years since Gaggia coffee machines were first sold in the UK and Soho quickly became synonymous with the new taste that started to replace centuries of tea drinking.

In 1950 people’s experience of coffee was limited to instant granules – a far cry from the range and quality you can get today.

So the taste of freshly brewed coffee from the latest high technology café coffee machines imported from Milan in Italy blew their tastebuds as well as their minds.

Soho is in the heart of London’s West End surrounded by theatre, arts, culture, fashion, free-thinking … everything that fired Britons’ imaginations in the coming years as they started to move away from the austerity forced on them by the Second World War and its aftermath.

People sought an escape, a new beginning and coffee absolutely defined this – a spectacular taste dispensed from sleek, stylish espresso coffee machines accompanied by the telltale hiss of steam and the clatter of porcelain cups.

The centre of attention became the Gaggia machines in coffee bars such as Bar Italia in Frith Street which served the British public with something they’d never seen before - espresso topped with a golden layer of crema. Bar Italia has since become one of the world’s best known cafes yet still only uses Gaggia coffee machines.

Gaggia had transformed drinking coffee into a true experience verging on performance art - dramatic, aromatic and utterly continental. Word spread quickly and Gaggia machines quickly became the centrepiece of Soho’s growing network of coffee bars, each one buzzing with music, conversation and energy.

Everything about the coffee bars was new and exciting with bright, modern décor and jukeboxes playing the latest hits along with Italian waiters adding to the authenticity of the experience.

Students, actors and musicians flocked to these bars which became meeting places for creatives, rebels and romantics — a scene so dynamic that the Daily Mirror dubbed it “the espresso revolution.”

Just as the West End theatres a short walk away entertained audiences with dazzling performances, the Soho coffee bar offered its own kind of artistry. The barista was the performer, the machine his instrument and the espresso hiss his applause.

By the late 1950s London boasted hundreds of coffee bars and Gaggia machines were at the heart of many of them such as The 2i’s Coffee Bar where future rock ’n’ roll stars such as Cliff Richard, Hank Marvin and Tommy Steele played in the basement with the likes of Diana Dors, Michael Caine and Terence Stamp among its clientele.

Then there were the stylish hangouts like The Moka Coffee Bar founded in 1953 by Italian actress Gina Lollobrigida at 29 Frith Street. 

By then the espresso bar had become a symbol of freedom and modernity.

This was coffee as culture, as lifestyle — and Gaggia was right there, shaping Britain’s first taste of it.
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And Gaggia remains at the heart of this lasting legacy with hundreds of thousands of Gaggia coffee machines now in people’s homes throughout the UK. making Gaggia as relevant and brand-leading today as it was back then.

A national magazine has just named a Gaggia coffee machine as the ultimate one for coffee lovers.

Lifestyle technology magazine T3 – which carries out comprehensive reviews on gadgets – says the Gaggia Accademia is the top bean to coffee machine.

It was up against strong competition such as the Jura J10 and the KitchenAid KF8 but pipped them both to win.

T3 states: “Gaggia’s style and unique barista-orientated features really gave it the edge. With exceptional quality controls, a cup warmer and solid water filtration, the Accademia is an absolute master of the classics.”

The T3 in-depth review says: “Gaggia’s pedigree and expertise has helped it build some fantastic automated bean-to-cup espresso machines.

“Why is the Gaggia Accademia so good? Well, the Accademia features a fully-fledged independent steam wand. You still have access to a filled, fully automated milk carafe capable of auto-steaming you a latte, cappuccino or flat white, but the fact this thing has its own dedicated unit for those skilled enough to pour swans and texture their own milk is an awesome addition and works surprisingly well, being versatile enough to ensure that crisp, smooth milk each and every time.

“Coffee quality is impressive as well. Using our house blend beans it delivered a taste profile that wasn’t a million miles away from a professional setup. The Accademia actually has the ability to adjust the grind size, making it finer or coarser depending on your needs.”

The review adds: “Tech features are broad too with each drink fully customisable with options for pre-brewing, milk foam density, temperature, aroma and more. There’s a lot here which is great to see without it being too complex.”

Gaggia UK managing director Raj Beadle said: “It’s quite something to come out on top in a T3 review as they dive deeply into everything they review.
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“Winning is a great testament to the Gaggia designers and engineers who always produce coffee machines that are so stylish they always have a wow factor but are also incredibly robust and reliable too.”