a case study featuring the GB5 S and PUQ Press Pro
Precinct at Tūhura is a cafe that considers the details. Nine years in, they’re still making all products in house, still investing in the relationships that hold a good café together, and still thinking carefully about how the bar both looks and functions. Positioned in Dunedin’s Tūhura Otago Museum for the past 3 years, they serve a wide crowd up to 450 coffees on a busy day, with one standard across the whole team.
We connected with Josua Chignell, Venues & Event Manager at Precinct, to find out how they built a bar that delivers on both.
The space
Precinct sits at the heart of Dunedin, with the University of Otago, Dunedin Hospital, and a strong local business community all on their doorstep. On weekdays that means the cafe is full of students, professionals, and locals. On weekends, families and the brunch crowd bustle in. It’s a genuinely diverse room, and the equipment on the bar needs to perform seamlessly to make sure they keep coming back.
What makes Precinct stand out isn’t any single thing. It’s the accumulation of considered decisions. Everything is made in house. Supplier relationships are taken seriously. And the space itself has been designed with real intention.
Workflow
After settling into their current space at Tūhura, Precinct did a full refit of the front-of-house counter. The goal was simple: remove friction. From start to finish, baristas work left to right. That means no doubling back and no wasted movement. Custom joinery means every tool is exactly where it needs to be.
The one remaining challenge was shot preparation. With a rotating team and high volume, consistency under pressure was the priority. That’s where the PUQ Press Pro made its mark.
The equipment
The GB5 S came highly recommended through their Allpress Espresso representative, and it earned its place on two counts. Aesthetically, it fits the bar perfectly; the custom joinery and the espresso machine feel like they were designed together. Practically, it takes up less bench space than its predecessor without losing any functionality, giving baristas more room to move.
The PUQ Press Pro addressed the consistency challenge directly. With multiple staff sharing the machine across any given week, tamping variation was something they wanted to be proactive in eliminating. The PUQ Press removed that variable entirely.
The results
Five months in, the feedback from Josua and the team is clear. The GB5 S is fast to re-dial mid-service, reliable under sustained volume, and noticed by customers for its elegant design. The machine sits front and centre in the bar layout and draws regular comments.
As Josua puts it: “I would wholeheartedly recommend all of the equipment to other businesses, especially high-volume businesses who are looking for equipment to improve not only their consistency of coffee but also increase their efficiencies in production.”
The GB5 S fits at Precinct the way good design should: it looks the part, takes up less bench space than its predecessor, and gives baristas the kind of intuitive, responsive experience that holds up across a busy service. Paired with the PUQ Press Pro, shot consistency is no longer dependent on who’s behind the machine.
Five months in, no faults, no downtime, and coffee that’s better for it. That’s what the right equipment should do. Quietly, reliably, every day.
Thinking about your own setup? Get in touch with the La Marzocco NZ team at sales.nz@lamarzocco.com
