By PJ CARRINGTON/Staff Writer, AALIYAH FLORES/Staff Writer, PAULINA MATA/Social Media Editor
Students make their way to the on-campus source of their caffeine-driven motivation, only to see empty, dark counters behind bars. Over the past weeks, the coffee shops in the College of Arts and Science, W.T. Brookshire hall (Fisch College of Pharmacy) and the Soules College of Business have been shut down.
Students’ deprivation of caffeinated drinks will soon be quenched with the grand opening of a fully-licensed Starbucks cafe in the Muntz Library.
“We hope the students are as excited as we are to utilize this beautiful space and have some great coffee and some great food,” Senior Supervisor Chris Whisenhunt said.
Located on the second floor of the library, the cozily-furnished Starbucks is only a few days away from its opening.
According to Sodexo marketing intern Avie McCormick, the Starbucks will have its grand opening on Oct. 9 from 3-5 p.m. UT Tyler’s Spirit Squad and band is set to make an appearance.
Entering the newly renovated space, students are welcomed with woody walls, plenty of studying spaces under warm lighting, and a colorful coffee flower mural on the back wall. As a fully-functioning Starbucks, the coffee shop will have more features than the previous ones on campus.
“This [Starbucks] is fully licensed, so it has a full menu,” Jamie Dowdy, the director of dining services for Sodexo, said. “There’s no difference. The only difference between this Starbucks and the one on the loop and Tyler is they have a drive-thru.”
Students will be able to use Starbucks points from the mobile app and buy drinks from the usual holiday-menus.
“It’ll be nice to be able to go downstairs at a late night at the library and grab a coffee,” student Logan Smith said. “It’s kind of aesthetic down there too, I’m not gonna lie. So, it’ll be a nice change of scenery to study in.”
Students aren’t the only ones gaining from the change of scenery, however.
“[The Starbucks] will bring a lot of people into the library and reinforce the library as kind of the social and cultural and intellectual hub of the university,” Dean of the University Libraries Becky McKay said.
“It’s a net gain of chairs,” McKay said. “There were 40-some chairs in there before, and now there’s 50-some chairs.”
Though the new Starbucks has caused the shut down of the other coffee shops on campus, the spaces will soon be occupied with more food options for students.
“We’re considering maybe moving our sushi production over there [to Soules] and turning it into a sushi type restaurant,” Dowdy said. “Now, sushi has been a big hit on campus. So, we’re trying to do it now where you can go there and get more items, customize your sushi, get salads with sushi in it, get bowls, get soups and stuff like that.”
As for CAS and W.T. Brookshire Hall’s former coffee shops, Dowdy said those renovations will “be based on what the dean wants to do with [them].”
“I’m just really excited to go in there and study,” student assistant at the COB undergraduate’s office Lupita Betancourt said. “To go in there, it feels just, it adds a new vibe to it. I really like it.”
