Brewing up excitement: SAMRU announces new student-run coffee shop
Liam Rockliffe, Features Editor |
With Good Earth leaving Wyckham House, a bean-shaped void was left in every student’s heart. Come fall 2025 however, SAMRU plans to open up their own—student-run—coffee shop.
Bringing coffee back into Wyckham will help those early 8:30 a.m. classes, and also those late nights writing essays you should’ve started a month ago. But SAMRU’s coffee house comes with even more bonuses for students.
Miranda Czaja, operations manager at SAMRU, shared some information on the up-and-coming cafe.
Czaja recognizes that students want their fresh brewed pick-me-up in the morning, but don’t want to have to pay $7 for a cup of coffee.
“We can operate on a cost recovery model. We can provide students with extraordinary value. So it’s that same premium product, but at below market pricing,” said Czaja.
Like everything at SAMRU, the cafe is going to be completely student-run. Come May, job postings will be posted on the website, inviting students to apply in the hopes of being selected to have an interview with the food and beverage manager
The cafe is going to run in a similar way to Starbucks, where customers can come up, make their order and be on their way. Along with coffee and lattes, teas and ‘coffee house favourites’ will also be available. Czaja says they also plan to offer some bakery options, but they “want to focus on doing a few things very well, instead of having a huge menu.”
The main thing that separates SAMRU’s cafe from the others will be the low pricing, since they only plan to “break even” from the costs required to run the coffee house, SAMRU will be able to offer coffee at a price that can’t be beaten anywhere else.
As for the name, SAMRU hosted a competition inviting students to give their best suggestions and while they got tons of suggestions, the final name reveal has to wait until the end of the month or early April.
“I really hope that students enjoy the space. A lot of time and consideration has gone into making it something that students will find desirable and that they’ll use the service,” said Czaja. “We are for students by students.”
