Despite difficulties that arose from a broken espresso machine, the Green Bean reopened Sept. 5 with a new drink selection and a new student mural.
Since its establishment in 2009, the Green Bean has been a go-to cafe and study spot for Occidental students. This semester, the new Programming & Customer Experience Manager Hunter Leong (senior) said that he hopes to make the Green Bean an inclusive and communal space for all students.
“I want to invite everyone to have some part in the Green Bean, like putting up their artwork, holding events and also ensuring that everyone feels some kind of belonging to the Green Bean,” Leong said.
One way that Leong said he plans to increase the Green Bean’s involvement on campus is through planning and hosting events.
For their first event of the semester, the Green Bean collaborated with the Oxy K-Tigers and hosted a karaoke night Sept. 14. The event offered a specialty drink collaboration, the Heart Shaker and the Strawberry Sunday, according to an email sent Sept. 9. Leong said he hopes to host more events in the coming months.
According to Leong, another change to the atmosphere of the Green Bean is the new mural.
“I wanted to fill up the space inside the Green Bean because we have a lot of blank walls that are meant for other students’ art pieces,” Leong said. “I hired someone [to paint the mural] so there could be more life in the space and I want to encourage more student artists to include their work in the Green Bean.”
Callie Chen (senior), an art major at Occidental, painted the new mural. Chen said she decided to take on the job after her partner, who works at the Green Bean, approached her about the opportunity.
“They wanted [the design] to be simple and clean since I only had a couple of days to finish it, so I ended up drawing some cute cartoon designs,” Chen said. “They wanted something that wouldn’t be too over-the-top but that would still fit with the vibes of the Green Bean.”
The mural features Chen’s cartoonish drawings of an oat milk carton, coffee cup, espresso bean and a mug adorning either side of the cafe’s name. There are also several small doodles inside of the sketches including a few hearts, stars and Occidental’s mascot Oswald.
“I hope the mural makes the Green Bean feel more cozy since the walls are currently pretty blank and empty, but I also hope it’s not too distracting since lots of people study in the Green Bean,” Chen said.
Anya Puri (junior) is a regular at the Green Bean and said she felt the mural added to the overall atmosphere of the space.
“I think it gives [the Green Bean] more personality, because before there wasn’t very much on the walls, so it creates a bit of a more welcoming environment,” Puri said.
Among this rejuvenation of the Green Bean are improvements to the way that the cafe is run and to customer experience, according to Leong.
“We’re a little bit stricter in a good way; enforcing a lot of policies, some new and some old,” Leong said. “We also have many new baristas who make up more than half of our staff, so we really needed to set a foundation for them so that we can have a more professional workspace.”
According to Leong, the staff of the Green Bean are also trying to keep on top of their inventory since they experienced issues with running out of espresso and milk last year.
“Before the change in management, we were a little disorganized and the Green Bean wasn’t taken care of well enough,” Leong said. “A lot of us didn’t know how to pull espresso shots correctly or how to brew things such as cold brew, so we really needed to get things together [this semester] and also improve the image of the Green Bean as a whole.”
Contact Izzy Shotwell at shotwell@oxy.edu
