Author: Chloe Jenkins-Sleczkowski
The Green Bean, the new student-run coffee lounge off of Branca Patio, was unable to open as scheduled in September and instead will not open until Friday, Oct. 23.
Last spring, Vice President of Student Affairs Barbara Avery started developing plans to open a new student dining service on campus. “After talking with students for two years I took the idea from them to develop this concept,” said Avery in an e-mail interview. The initial plan was to work on construction projects over summer break and be ready to open for Orientation Week.
“Ideally, we would have wanted to be open for the start of the semester, but it got approved very late last semester,” said Associate Vice President for Hospitality Services and Campus Dining Amy Munoz. “The realities of planning, design, permitting [and] construction were that it just simply couldn’t be completed in that amount of time.” The remodeling projects took longer than expected because of contract and approval delays by the city.
Once project organizers realized that the original opening date couldn’t be met, they pushed the Green Bean’s opening to Oct. 23, the beginning of Homecoming Weekend and the day before President Veitch’s inauguration. “Right now it is on schedule,” said Munoz.
The delays have caused problems for student workers who were hired in the spring and expected to start work in September. “[The Green Bean] allowed me to secure a job for this semester and not have to worry about it over summer, which kind of backfired since it still hasn’t opened midway through the semester,” said student employee Roxanne Laufer (sophomore).
The planning and organizing of the new Green Bean has been entirely up to the student staff and managers Raquel Carrion (junior), Greg Benz (junior), Renoa Batista (junior) and Christian Hernandez (sophomore). “The student managers have selected all of the products for the Green Bean,” said Munoz.
This includes not only the services and prices, but the programming and ambiance as well. “The students picked the colors and the menus and other things that needed to be in place before opening,” Avery said. “The Green Bean is student-managed, which makes it different from the Cooler.”
“It’s really awesome that we can have our peers as our bosses,” said Green Bean Barista Danielle Caban (sophomore) of the student-run operation. “It’ll create a different sort of working environment.”
The student managers will be in charge of organizing the events and programs at the Green Bean as well. There are plans to hold student art shows, open mic nights and other campus events at the new coffee lounge. The Green Bean will have later weekday hours than the Cooler (until 2 a.m.), giving students a late-night food hangout. In addition, the staff has tentative plans to keep 24/7 hours during finals week, depending on the staffing situation. “It’s going to be nice to have a third option,” said Caban.
The Green Bean’s selection of products will be different from that of the Cooler and the Marketplace. “There will be more choices and more options,” said Munoz. “And with the larger freshman class, then we’ve got more customers to feed, and it’s great to have more places to feed them.”
Organizers do not anticipate that the Green Bean cafe will take any business away from the other campus dining services. “The Green Bean is not competing with the Cooler,” said Avery. “It is enhancing student life and giving students another option.”
Despite construction delays, the staff is still optimistic that the Green Bean can add something to Oxy’s campus. “It has a lot of opportunity,” said Caban.
This article has been archived, for more requests please contact us via the support system.
