Starbucks on Campus?

March 5, 2023

By Elizabeth Palumbo

Geneva, NY — Starbucks is a popular place for college students with a variety of over 400 unique drinks and food options. There are around 300 campuses that serve Starbucks coffee and HWS is no longer one of them.

DeCordova Hall, a residence hall on Emerson Hill, used to have a café on the ground floor that served Starbucks coffee, but this is no longer an option for students. This was the only Strabucks that the city of Geneva had.

However, Au Bon Pain, or ABP, is a café that has served as a substitute for Starbucks on campus. Here, students can buy drinks and food and it is located in the Warren Huntington Smith library in the center of campus.

Since Starbucks is so popular with college-aged people, I wondered what the HWS community thought about this topic and if they would prefer a Starbucks to be a part of campus again.

A student athlete at HWS, who asked to remain anonymous, shared that they felt people would benefit from having extra snacks and a wider variety of drinks which is what having a Starbucks could offer. They feel ABP is expensive and it would be beneficial to have a snack and drink option at the bottom of deCordova Hall again, in case students were running late and needed to grab something quickly.

Regarding the question of how a Starbucks would survive here and who would work there, this student said that they would be interested in working there if they were not an athlete. They said that they felt many people would work there if it meant we had a Starbucks again. They did say that ABP may suffer at first, but two different café locations would be beneficial for students. With two different café locations, on either side of campus, each café would get business from different students. The Starbucks closer to the athletes gym would primarily target athletes going to practice or meetings where ABP in the library would be targeted towards anyone working on homework for long periods needing a pick me up.

A parent of an HWS student was willing to share their thoughts on this topic as well. They felt that a Starbucks on campus would not be beneficial as there are plenty of opportunities to get coffee elsewhere. They feel that the campus is small enough that a second café is not a critical issue and if anything, there should be a smaller coffee shop on the arts campus.

This parent felt that a Starbucks on campus may result in more people from the community coming onto campus and this could create unwanted problems. The only benefit this parent could think of was that it would create more job opportunities for students.

HWS has a coffee and food option for students with ABP and it does not appear that another option is critical for our campus. Students may enjoy having a Starbucks, but the removal of the one at deCordova Hall did not seem to impact students' college experiences here at HWS in any profound way. Perhaps other efforts should be made to make the food and drink options that we already have on campus even better.