Five years after buying Espresso Specialists of Seattle and making our fair city its U.S. headquarters, Franke Coffee Systems North America is moving to Smyrna, Tennessee, this summer to share quarters with its sibling, Franke Foodservice Systems.

About 30 people in Seattle will lose their jobs because of the move, which happens in July.

"They're a bigger company and have built a marvelous facility where there's space and opportunity for us," Roman Gaus, president of Franke Coffee Systems North America, said of its Foodservice sister. Their parent is a family-owned Swiss company also called Franke.

The Seattle (for now) distributor has been busy lately supplying coffee machines to McDonald's for the national rollout of its McCafes. That has pushed another equipment maker to consider distributing its own machines in the U.S. rather than having Franke do it.

"It requires so much of Franke's time and energy and resources," said Joe Monaghan, U.S. president of La Marzocco. "And the client base is so different. La Marzocco caters mostly to smaller independent coffeehouses, really the opposite of McDonald's. It's difficult for anybody to try to do [distribute] both and do it well."

La Marzocco -- whose owners are mostly Seattleites but whose machines are made in Florence, Italy -- planned to take over its own distribution at the end of the year. Now Monaghan hopes the distribution switch will coincide with Franke's move to Tennessee.

To bring the story full circle: When La Marzocco starts distributing for itself, it will be under roughly the same group of people who owned Espresso Specialists. They used to distribute Franke machines in the U.S. before Franke bought them out.

In case you're wondering what Franke is trading Seattle for, here's Smyrna, Tennessee:

View Smyrna, Tennessee in a larger map