Meet the Kanen Coffee Service Team
You don't buy a $3,000 espresso machine from a website. You buy it from people. Here's who runs the shop in Berkeley — the techs who'll dial in your shots, repair your machine when it needs work, and tell you the truth about which machine is actually right for you.
What our team does
Kanen Coffee is structured around one principle: the people selling you espresso machines should be the same people who repair them. There's no separate "sales team" pushing units. Our showroom is staffed by working technicians who spend half the week opening machines up to fix them — and the other half helping customers pick the right one. The repair experience informs every machine we choose to carry.
Combined experience across our team: 15+ years of espresso machine repair, with authorized service certifications from Lelit, Breville, ECM, La Marzocco, Rancilio, and most major prosumer brands.
The team
Sam Kanenwisher — Owner
Sam founded Kanen Coffee and runs the shop. Disabled veteran, longtime espresso enthusiast, and the person who first decided that "an espresso machine retailer that's also a repair shop" was a business worth building. Sam's most common showroom contribution: walking customers through the trade-offs they actually care about — total cost of ownership, what breaks, what doesn't — without the brand-loyalty filter most retailers apply.
Quoted in customer conversations and product pages: "Beautiful machine with a lever for pulling shots. Dual boilers and a huge steam boiler — great for home use and small businesses." (on the Lelit Bianca V3)
Julian — Lead Tech
Julian leads our service workflow. If you bring a machine in for repair, Julian probably opens it first. Especially deep on E61 group machines and Lelit's full lineup. Known internally for the "30-second diagnostic" — most service tickets, Julian can identify the issue before pulling the front panel.
Julian on the Bianca: "The Bianca is our favorite machine here. Dual boiler, massive steam boiler — really hard to exhaust. E61 group head keeps brew temp stable even if the machine sat for a while. The lid comes off fast, panels are just a few screws, and everything is easy to service."
Khaldoun — Senior Tech
Khaldoun handles the harder repairs — boiler swaps, electronic control board issues, machines other shops have given up on. Particularly experienced with La Marzocco saturated groups and commercial-grade equipment. The person we hand the "this machine should not be alive" problems to.
Khaldoun on prosumer reliability: "Performance machine with more mechanical parts, so it needs careful maintenance. Boilers are well-insulated, wands are no-burn. We rarely see these for anything serious — mostly routine tune-ups."
What this means for you as a customer
Honest recommendations, not commission-driven. Our team isn't paid commission on machine sales. There's no incentive to push you toward a more expensive machine. If you walk in considering a Bianca and we think a Mara X fits your use case better, we'll tell you and save you $1,300.
Repair-experience-informed sales. When we say "the Mara X almost never has boiler failures" or "the Rocket lineup post-2018 has had wiring issues we don't see on Lelit equivalents," we're sharing what comes through our shop. That's a different conversation than what you'll have at a competitor.
Long-term support. Buy a machine from us and we're your service team for the life of that machine. Not "for the warranty period" — for the life of it. Lelit machines we sold 8 years ago come back for service from owners who've had them since day one.
Visit the team
Book a buying consultation or repair appointment in advance to guarantee dedicated time with one of our techs at our Berkeley showroom.
Address: 2319 4th Street, Berkeley, CA 94710
Phone: (510) 859-4425
Hours: Monday–Friday, 9am–6pm
Directions and showroom info: /pages/berkeley-espresso-showroom
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