Our story · Since 2010
It started with a rubber mallet.
How one broken espresso machine — and one phone call from Italy — created the most buyer-friendly policies in specialty coffee.
2010
One machine. One retailer. One big problem.
Fresh out of college — and newly obsessed with coffee after a summer studying in London and traveling Europe more or less penniless — I did what any reasonable 22‑year‑old would do: I spent a year saving $1,500 for a prosumer espresso machine.
I didn't even know machines like this existed until I started digging. Back then, exactly one retailer imported them into the US. I won't name names. They're still in business.
When my machine finally arrived, the frame under the drip tray was bent upward. Shipping damage. Annoying, but it happens. I sent photos and figured they'd do what any retailer should do on a $1,500 machine: make it right.
Instead, they gave me this advice:
Go to a hardware store, buy a rubber mallet, and gently bend the frame back into place.
Actual advice from the retailer who sold a brand‑new, damaged $1,500 espresso machine. They didn't care about the chargeback threats. They didn't care at all.
Two weeks later
Then Italy picked up the phone.
Out of options, I emailed the manufacturer directly. Not to demand anything — just to tell them what happened with my order and what it did to how I saw their brand.
They made it right immediately. They upgraded my machine and air‑freighted a new one straight from the factory in Italy, packed alongside a pile of Italian coffee and accessories. And then the owner of the factory called me. Personally. We talked for a long time — about their machines, their history, and ecommerce, since my family ran an online business at the time.
Somewhere in that phone call, Cliff & Pebble was born.
Today
We built the company that 2010 needed.
Every policy at Cliff & Pebble is the opposite of a rubber mallet. This is what buying a serious machine should feel like.
The 365-Day In-Home Trial
Take a full year. Pull shots every single morning. If the machine isn't right for you, send it back. If the retailer who sold Matt that first machine had simply accepted a return, this company wouldn't exist — so we built the return policy we wish we'd had.
Read the full policy →Damaged in transit? Replaced. Period.
If your machine arrives with so much as a bent frame, we make it right immediately. No hardware store required.
Curated, not crowded
We only carry prosumer machines from brands that stand behind them the way that Italian factory stood behind ours. If a brand won't take care of you, we don't sell it.
Email us. You'll get the owner.
No ticket queues, no scripts. Questions about machines, orders, or troubleshooting are answered personally — usually by Matt himself.
The brands that earned their place
Fifteen years later, that's still the whole idea.
Only prosumer machines. Only the brands that have earned it. And a company that answers the way I wish someone had answered me in 2010. If you have a question about anything — a machine, an order, a weird noise your grouphead is making — email us. You'll get me.
— Matt
Founder, Cliff & Pebble