Photo by Reid Bruner
There is a desperate, desperate time that occurs around noon each day after attending your first classes of the day. As fatigue takes over, only the idea of espresso—dowsed with sugary sweet pumpkin or cinnamon or vanilla—saves you from giving up on the day.
So you walk to Starbucks. And then walk back—and back—and just a little bit farther—to the end of the line near the back entrance.
It’s almost as torturous as having an 8 a.m. class.
Please, Butler University, make our Starbucks bigger.
The Collegian reported this week that Butler is renovating our campus dining areas, so I plead with the administration to not forget Starbucks. It is as vital to campus life as Blue II, rain boots and those random Student Government Association events that always seem to be happening on the Mall.
Students have recognized the problem, but truly, there doesn’t seem to be a real solution.
“The line gets really long, but the staff always gets through the line really quickly,” Madie Podgorski, a senior biology and middle/secondary education major, said. “They’re really efficient.”
Students may complain about the long lines, but all of them agree that the staff does everything they can.
“Coming here is so convenient on the way to class,” Jordan Dolson, a junior psychology and anthropology major, said. “They work really fast, and you can still get to class on time.”
As for Emily Brown, training and promotions coordinator at the campus Starbucks, she said things couldn’t be going better.
Brown said business has been especially good.
She said that even with freshman enrollment not at record levels, Starbucks has increased its sales on campus.
“I can’t even tell you when our busiest time is, because it literally can happen anytime from open to close,” she said.
And you know what? I’m happy for them. I really, really am, because the people who work at Starbucks are the nicest I know—they ask me how my day was, they make sure they spell my name correctly and they try to remember their regular.
The only solution I can see to improve the institution that we on campus hold so dear? Expand. Hire more workers, add more registers, put in more seating. Judging on my experiences with campus dining, Starbucks deserves the money more, saving students from the deathly glares of professors during those awful two-and-a-half-hour classes.
Reward the nicest people on campus who tirelessly serve cranky, decaffeinated crowds and give students the only real food group they consume on a daily basis—coffee.
It will give us something legitimate to celebrate about Starbucks, instead of just the red holiday cups.
