Faculty who regularly visit the Anne Queen Faculty Commons this fall will find that the coffee service normally provided between 9:00 a.m. and 11:00 a.m. on weekdays is gradually being phased out. The coffee service will stop in early September when The Meantime Café opens for business in the foyer of the Campus Y building.
The Meantime Café is a non-profit coffee shop founded and managed by current Carolina students who seek to raise funds for student scholarships and grants. Entirely student-run, the shop will employ around 20 students to serve as both baristas and managers.
The Meantime Café menu will feature specialty coffee and espresso-based drinks, pastries and baked goods. The café will source its beans from Carrboro Coffee Roasters and will sell baked goods from Made with Love Bakery, an organization that empowers homeless individuals in Chapel Hill through culinary training.
Student leaders are excited about the options that the Meantime Café will bring for both faculty who frequent the Anne Queen Faculty Commons and for students who attend classes and host events in the building. The café’s founders, Lauren Eaves and Scott Diekema, have been working with the Professor Marcie Cohen-Ferris and Professor Alice Ammerman, co-chairs of the Food for All Campus Theme Steering Committee, to articulate the importance of food to building a sense of community.
“We hope to create a central space on campus where students, faculty and staff can come together over great coffee,” said Scott Diekema ‘19, a co-founder of The Meantime Café. “Our team has been dreaming this up for over a year now, and we are really excited to finally share it with the Carolina community.”
Secretary of the Faculty Vin Steponaitis, who heads the Office of Faculty Governance that manages the Anne Queen Faculty Commons during its daytime hours, also sees the project as a good opportunity to increase the number of food and coffee options faculty have on the north side of campus.
Steponaitis believes that “with both Meantime and Blue Ram nearby, faculty using the Anne Queen Faculty Commons will now have more options to get good coffee.”
The Meantime Café will launch in early September and will be open weekdays from 7:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.
To learn more about The Meantime Café’s mission and offerings, visit their website at meantimecoffee.com or send an email to scott@meantimecoffee.com.
