For many students on campus, the Guerrieri Academic Commons (GAC) is an important and productive study location. More caffeine should be incorporated of this already iconic location because students at Salisbury University are completing homework, preparing for exams or checking out books 24 hours a day.
It is no surprise that the university has made dining accommodations within the GAC a priority for student convenience and business.
Hungry Minds Express and Chesapeake Bay Roasting Company (CBRC) are the two on-campus dining locations that call the GAC their home. Both locations are incredibly popular with students but their hours can be quite perplexing.
The hours of Hungry Minds and CBRC are different. Hungry Minds is open from 10 a.m. to 11:30 p.m. on Mondays through Fridays and 5 p.m. to 11:30 p.m. on Saturdays and Sundays.
The CBRC’s hours are much more limited. The coffee kiosk is open from 7:30 a.m. to 8 p.m. on Mondays through Thursdays and 7:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. Fridays. It is not open on Saturdays and Sundays.
Cool Beans, SU’s other coffee shop, has significantly longer hours than CBRC. It is open from 7:30 am-11 p.m. Mondays through Fridays and noon-11 pm Saturdays and Sundays.
Why does CBRC, a relatively new but popular dining location, have such conservative hours, especially compared to other dining locations such as Hungry Minds and Cool Beans?
CBRC extending its hours past 8 p.m. would be convenient for the many students who do their studying at night in the Guerrieri Academic Commons. If students can grab a burger from Hungry Minds as a late-night dinner or snack, it would make sense that they are able to grab a late-night coffee as well.
This is especially true of students who are staying up late to complete a project or study for an upcoming exam. In that case, they could use the caffeine.
While studying students who want to consume coffee at a later hour could go to Cool Beans, this is inconvenient for those students who study in the library. Why trek across campus and leave your group and belongings when there is a coffee kiosk inside the very building they are studying in?
Perhaps CBRC could follow in the footsteps of Hungry Minds, which was able to extend its hours. While the dining location used to be open beginning at 11 a.m. on weekdays, it is now open at 10 am.
If CBRC was open an hour or two later on weekdays and/or be open on Saturday and Sunday, this could create huge business. Not only that but students that drink coffee at night will not be confused by the different hours of the CBRC and Hungry Minds.
CBRC should also consider being open on weekends, even for a few hours, because students still come to the GAC to study on weekends. And if students study, they’ll want to take a break (perhaps a coffee break) at some point in time.
By ALLISON GUY
Staff writer
Featured photo: CBRC is located next door to Hungry Minds Express in GAC (Hannah Wichrowski image).