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the Washington and Jefferson on-campus dining experience, it is wholly independent of the college and is 100-percent student-run, with no faculty or staff supervision whatsoever. In 2010, Washington and Jefferson, a private school with an enrollment of only 1,500 undergraduates, was home to two cof- fee shops, one thriving and one failing. As a last-ditch effort to keep both in business, Tim Murphy, a professor at the college, approached Nick and another student, Dylan Haas, regarding their thoughts on taking over the business. The sophomores had no prior café experience, but liked the idea of operating a small business and decided to take Tim up on his proposal. After receiving a loan from the school, Roasted opened its doors and began serving Dunkin' Donuts coffee and an assortment of goodies with the stipulation that all profits made at the shop would go back to the school until the loan was paid off. Four years later, Roasted is in the black and is being run by its student baristas and managers with no college oversight whatsoever. Current manager Preston Shaw has even partnered with a local roaster to bring independent coffee to campus. Not every program wants full autonomy from the university system however. Husky Grind, for example, sees the benefit of remaining a member of the university dining family. The Uni- versity of Washington is home to more than 7,000 on-campus residents, and hosts another 35,000 off-campus students daily. Factor in nearly 20,000 faculty and staff members, and all of a sudden, you have quite a large, diverse population, many of whom are seeking a cup of coffee and a bite to eat. In 2012, the university did over $35 million dollars in sales at its dining establishments campus-wide, with more than $3.2 million dollars spent on coffee alone. During the fall of 2012, the University of Washington entered into a partnership with Star- bucks to provide coffee and other beverages to the vast majority of its 29 coffee-serving locations, the only exceptions being the two Husky Grind locations as well as the Parnassus Hall Café and the restaurant concept Cultivate, both of which serve Husky Grind coffee. "[The University] is partners with Starbucks right now and that's an aspect of our coffee program, but we're fortunate that we can offer two styles of service: the Starbucks style and more of the third-wave, high-end specialty style. That's kind of what we want in on and what we have going on here," says Joseph of Husky Grind. The ability to determine customers' product and ordering preferences is something on-campus cafés are uniquely posi- tioned to do, as café employees tend to be active members of the university population the business is marketing itself to. " We're working with people that are in the same customer base as the ones that we are trying to target," Nick says. Though the baristas and café managers may know their cli- entele, not just as customers but also as friends, the problem remains that as each new school year begins, a slew of new stu- dents must be made aware of the café's very existence. Husky Grind utilizes informative training sessions, going to on-campus functions, providing coffee, and discussing the merits of single origins and locally roasted coffee. Husky Grind sets up information booths with coffee samples at events such as the Campus Sustainability Summit and Dawg Days, a weeklong cel- ebration welcoming students back to campus each fall. Roasted relies on different marketing strategies. " We sent out a survey to every student on the campus as well as faculty and staff," says Nick. "They were able to tell us times they'd like us to be open, different color schemes for the café, different products [they want the café to offer] like bagels, donuts, and things like that." hether they appeal to student cus- tomers through surveys or samples, on-campus coffee programs are progressively savvy about succeed- ing in the university setting. With an intelligent, localized population from which to select managers, accountants, roasters, quality con- trollers, trainers, and baristas, university roasting and retailing operations are natural fits for today's young consumers, and tomorrow 's entrepreneurs. W 76 barista magazine B o o k 4 7 - 9 2 . i n d d 7 6 Book 47-92.indd 76 5 / 1 5 / 1 4 1 0 : 4 6 P M 5/15/14 10:46 PM