Bought & restored 2 hand made classics

Due to many reasons -wife being from Brasil, son being a trained barista, enjoying very good coffee, knowing most Americans have not had good coffee (which is changing), having a desire for top of the line products in their fields, being thrifty, having the ability to fix things, having a friend with an Italian ristorante who wanted to add good espresso - I rescued a La Marzocco Linea Classic AV 2 Group & a Eureka Olympus High Power & restored them to there former glory.  They are now producing very good espressos, lattes, flavored coffees, hot chocolates & affagottos.  

A local roaster with 16 years experience supplies the freshest beans available.  Still trying to get him back off on the roast little but it's hard convincing the expert. I think it's Vienna to almost French, he says it's Full City +.  
Would like to organize a Cars & Coffee in the this area of the Florida Panhandle. It's at a golf course so there is lots of parking.

I don't know anything about coffee machines but I haven't met many coffee drinks I don't like. Those are pretty machines though, and thanks for continuing to caffeinate the common folk!

Where'd you find them? And where do I learn to work on them? I love the bougie look of having a good espresso machine.

In reply to GIRTHQUAKE :

My son found it on Facebook of all places. A family closed their Italian restaurant in Jacksonville & were consolidating their bakery to that location. It was in a dark corner in the kitchen, very neglected & sad. 
It had been turned off 3 months prior to that & the tanks were not drained. According the owner's son, it had never had any PM's done. 
The tanks had 1/2" of sediment & scale in them. 
My son found the factory service manual online after we got all home. I just started reading & ordering parts as I disassembled it. They are very well designed & assembled. La Marzocco has been building these since 1927 so they know how.  It really only required a PM kit, both heating elements, viton O-rings for all of the bad 1-way check valves & copper crush washers. Amazingly parts are cheaper from England, even including shipping. Napa had the o-rings & crush washers. 
Took every copper & stainless line off & soaked in vinegar/water for a few days. 
Scraped out the tanks, then flushed them many times with vinegar water. 
It runs on 220/30amp so got an adapter to plug into the drier power & adapted the water line for the water pump. 
Then we flushed & flushed the tanks with cold water. Then followed the Operator's manual for startup procedure. Then heated it up & flushed with more vinegar water.  Nothing like the smell of 200deg vinegar steam. 
Finally got it all flushed & cleaned. 
We made espresso shots all night getting it dialed in. 
I replaced the 2000watt steam boiler element with a 3000watt, making it a High Power version. Then added shot timers so we can monitor the times & then adjust the grinder courseness to keep it dialed in as the heat & humidity change. 
The grinder only need cleaned out & things tightened up. It's a work of art as well. Single & double shot timer settings, adjustable in 0.05 second intervals. To also control the 14 gram double shot target.  Yes we have a scale to weigh the double shots throughout the day. It's very much like tuning a car.  
My son takes it way to far since he was professionally trained.  I've told him many times that we're making coffee not saving lives. 
We watched lots of YouTube videos about this unit & then lots about espresso in general. I now know the physics of coffee extraction from roasted coffee seeds.  Amazing someone figured that out so long ago.

Super cool! I almost bought a similar machine decades ago, at an auction for a closed down restaurant. I was a kid (17? 18?) buying and selling surplus and bid up to $1200 and still didn't get it. There was only one other bidder. Years later I was a regular at a coffee shop and admired the espresso machine, and the owner said "And I would've had it for a song if it wasn't for some kid bidding against me!"

I don't think he knew I was that doofus kid.. If I ever run into him again I'll tell him that story.

The family say they bought this one new for $14,000 in 2017. Got it, the $1500 grinder (titanium flat burr), the pump, water lines, cart, cups, a case of Marsala, commercial water filter for $5,000. 

Who's the mysterious barefoot photographer whose toes are clearly reflected in the shiny metal in the third photo in the first post? 

I hardly ever get them but to the uninitiated:

an affogado (or affogatto?) is about the best dessert on earth.

In reply to 1988RedT2 :

That's my toes. It's Florida so even in the winter we don't wear shoes.

mdshaw said:

In reply to 1988RedT2 :

That's my toes. It's Florida so even in the winter we don't wear shoes.

Except for Christmas weekend.  We wore shoes then

mdshaw said:

That sure looks like the nuclear bomb from James Bond's Goldfinger.