CMPT16M 16" Round Portable Steel Crepe Maker - 208/240V

I've purchased 5 of these for use in my stores. Three of them failed and no longer power on after only a day or two of being put into use. The 2 that do work are fine but from my experience you have less than a 50% chance your griddle will work.

This machine worked great for 6 months(just a little past the warranty limit). We bought it 11/24/21 and last week it started heating up uncontrollably! No way to use it and barely past the warranty! Not a pricey machine but definitely not worth only 6 1/2 months of use! Don't buy this machine if you don't want to have to replace it every 6 months!!

So, it works pretty well. If I didn't get it for the price I did, I'd probably give it a 3 star, but let's not expect a $1,000 machine for 1/5 the price. So first the negative. I don't like that there's a gap between the cooktop and the rest of the machine. Its an easy way to get ingredients down in the machine. Second, the burner doesn't reach to the outside of the griddle top. You can tell because you can look underneath since there's a gap, plus when you season it, it doesn't season completely to the edges since it doesn't get hot enough there. That being said, it seems to cook the crepe ok on the edges, so maybe I'm just worrying about it more than I should. The only real negative that I hate about it is that there's no on and off switch. You can turn the heat all the way down and it's off, but come on, charge me an extra $5 and put in a hard on/off switch for safety. My last negative is that if you're doing high volume, you'd not be able to keep up, you'd have to let it recover some heat. I don't feel like that's a problem with the machine though, I think it's because it's the standard 15 amp power I was using. That makes it easiest to hook up though, and I'd imagine if you went up to the machine with the higher power option it might not be an issue. So that's not anything on the manufacturer, that's the customers choice, but just know that going in if you have a high volume operation. Now for the good, It was pretty easy to get set up and seasoned. I initially had a hard time with it, I watched the video to season the Krampouz machine, and that was totally incorrect in relation to this machine. Watch the video to season the Waring Pro Crepe machine, that's what we went off of, and it seasoned it perfectly in a little over an hour. Also, unless you have it under an exhaust hood, you should do it outside. It created so much smoke indoors. After it's seasoned though, you don't have to worry about that. It makes great crepes, I was glad the spreader and flipper were included so I didn't have to spend extra for them. So overall I'd definitely recommend this if you want to add crepes to your breakfast menu, or have a machine to use at home, or have any kind of lower volume operation. Higher volume, I'd still recommend a Carnival King machine as I feel like to price is so great, I'd just get the one with the higher power output.