What Grinders Do You Recommend, Dan?:-)
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Had my Rancilio set up going on 15 years and it's still running strong. All I have replaced is a thremostat and group head gasket (done that a few times).

Rancilio is as cheap as I would buy if I were doing it again. There is a certain level of base cost to really do it well, or you'll never be happy and end up buying it over... Espresso is an expensive game to get into, but once you have the set up, you are good to go for many years.
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If you're looking to spend ~$500 you can get a great machine for sure. Having said that, I was NOT looking to spend that. I looked at some cheaper options and the best one I think you can buy for under $100 is this one:

Mr. Coffee ECMP50

It's a pump (as opposed to steam) and makes a pretty dang good cup of espresso with an excellent crema. The only problems are it's very automatic and you can't really tailor it to your taste. On the other hand, it's very automatic and easy to use :-) lol.
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This is the best point of all. ON THE FRONT END, you can't convince a brother NOT to spend a
hundred bucks on an Espresso machine, and not talking specifically about anyone here,
since it was only just brought up. But I am talking about the buying something three times
instead of once. Bottom line is espresso is good and espresso is expensive, for a reason. It's not
a cheap game, so looking for cheap buy-ins to an expensive game is a no-win sitcho. I think
its at least one of those deals where you can taste the money. When I first read this thread,
I went and shopped a bit. I realized by the time I had done as much research as I would have needed
to do, that I was being priced out. I LOVE espresso, but I do not drink coffee daily, much less visit
St@arbucks enough to make a machine practical. In fact never been into a St@rbucks. So if I wanted
strong coffee I would have to MAKE it strong. Now, maybe one day when I have a house and am old...
For now, saving money as hard as I am, I will just have to cold brew some strong coffee and pretend.
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I completely agree with this. If you do have the money (which it sounds like you do want to spend enough), get a good machine. I know mine will break sooner rather than later, at which point I will hopefully be able to get a nicer machine :-)
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After being in the espresso game for a while, the Rancilio is the minimum I would suggest to anyone wanting to get into making it a home.

Remember, that even in Europe, these machines are not cheap so it's not a "because it's imported..." or something like that.

The super automatics are cool, but never make as good espresso as you could do with semi-automatic machine and when they break is a lot more complicated to fix.
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He's probably going to tell you Mazzer Mini, which would be yet another tidbit of wisdom from Mr. Moo as they are hard to beat.

Personally, I'm a happy owner of the Macap M4.

Since we're all agreeing it's not cheap, I'd encourage the buyer to look seriously into a machine with an E61 grouphead and say goodbye to temp surfing.
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I have just about every type of coffee maker including 4 different espresso machines. My favorite is my Nespresso espresso machine! It's the simplest to use and they have a variety of pods to choose from and they are really good quality coffees which make a great shot of espresso. The only drawback is you have to buy pods from nespresso which only take a day or two to deliver.:-)
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I love my Capresso Infinity Burr Grinder. It doesn't come with a doser though.

http://www.bedbathandbeyond.com/prod...p?SKU=14902422
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