The espresso machine at the downtown Monks Coffee Shop is finally on its way to recovery.

Emily Eastman, Monks employee of over a year, said they bought the espresso machine used and have had it for about six months now.

“It just stopped pulling shots,” said Eastman, a recent ACU graduate. “The water wasn’t coming up to pull the shots, and the pressure was very low, so we thought the boiler went out.”

Eastman said they initially tried to have someone in town fix the machine.

“There’s only one person in Abilene who knows how to fix espresso machines, and she kind of put it off and put it off,” Eastman said. “So finally, we decided she couldn’t do it, so we sent it to Austin for repairs.”

It was thought to have a two-week turnaround, but the two weeks have passed. Eastman does not know how much longer the repairs will take.

The espresso machine at Mezamiz Deux Coffee Shop on S. 7th Street is also broken. Eastman heard they were performing the annual cleaning and found something wrong with it. The only person who knows how to fix espresso machines in Abilene works at Mezamiz Deux.

The new Monks location on Ambler has a working espresso machine. Eastman said it’s a lot slower at the downtown location in the mornings now.

“Thankfully, in the mornings we have a lot of just black-coffee drinkers, so it doesn’t really affect them as much, but we still lost some business,” Eastman said. “We try to tell everyone that we have a functioning espresso machine at the store on Ambler.”

The downtown Monks location can still make all iced drinks.

“It’s supposed to be in the 90s all week, and we do have a chilled espresso we can use,” Eastman said.

Maggie Marshall, Monks employee at the Ambler location, said the broken espresso machine has sent a lot of customers to the Ambler location.

“Despite the inconvenience, it’s helped get the word out about the new location, which we desperately needed,” said Marshall, senior English major from Tulsa, Oklahoma.