Thursday, February 19, 1998
Real Bruins
Coffehouse manager Dave Newlove
makes sure students get their espresso
By Michelle Navarro
Daily Bruin Staff
If there is anyone who would benefit from cloning, it’s Dave
Newlove. Keeping Kerckhoff Coffeehouse, the Kerckhoff Patio Cart
and Viewpoint Cafe all running smoothly requires the coffeehouse
manager to be everywhere all at once.
Caught in the blender of Kerckhoff Hall, Newlove is constantly
running up, down and all around, giving orders to all the
employees, occasionally helping out during rushes and making sure
the espresso has just the right taste.
"So many drinks are based on espresso, so it’s important that
it’s right," he said, adding milk to a small plastic cup full of
espresso. "Milk takes away the bitterness, but if it’s brewed
wrong, you still get the bitter taste. The humidity and temperature
affect how it comes out, it’s the most temperamental thing."
It’s the details like those that Newlove must always
remember.
"I’ve done it for so long," Newlove said, "it’s almost like
second nature to me."
And it’s a good thing remembering comes easy, because when the
line began to form upstairs in Kerckhoff at 7 a.m., on a typical
day for Newlove, he had to be ready. He’d already woken up two
hours before to make it there on time and get everything set
up.
So even before the saggy-eyed ASUCLA employees and students
queued up for their much-needed dose of caffeine and even before
the sun rose, Newlove started his day.
"I go to work in the dark and go home in the dark," he said,
mentioning he usually doesn’t return home until 7 p.m.
After the opening rush, the eight-year ASUCLA employee poured
himself a cup of coffee, the only one he would drink that day.
"The employees freak when I drink more," he joked.
While going over time cards in his small office at the
coffeehouse, cluttered with backpacks, coffee mugs and Dilbert
comic strips, Newlove talked about some of the problems that come
with managing 120 student employees.
"When we get into midterms and finals, this is what happens to
the number of people who call in sick," Newlove explained, drawing
a graph with the highest peaks of sick calls during the exam
weeks.
He said that presents a problem when there’s not enough
employees to handle the long lines of customers.
And Kerckhoff Coffeehouse does gets its fair share of lines, as
the financial statistics clearly show.
After punching in the sales figures for the previous day in his
computer, Newlove said the the coffeehouse brought in $5,367, 9.4
percent better than the figure for the same day the previous
year.
Newlove predicted the coffeehouse will serve 510,000 customers
this year.
Viewpoint doesn’t see such a high number of customers or
profits. In fact, Newlove said that most of the time, "it just
breaks even."
At Viewpoint Cafe, a short while before it opened its lines to
students, Newlove tried to get everything into place.
"How’s it going?" he asked the employees as he made his way
over. "Can you make sure we have all the biscotti out and more
chocolate to the front. Also, wear your name tag."
While there, Newlove checked up on the adjacent mini-bakery
where everyday at 6 a.m., Antonio, the baker, bakes some of the
fresh pastries.
Any food that doesn’t get sold, Newlove said, is donated to the
Hunger Project, a UCLA community service organization.
After checking up on Viewpoint Cafe, Newlove took the stairs
back up – a journey he would make more than five times by the
afternoon.
"Later in the day, the elevators are useless," he said, "the
doors open up and it’s already packed."
Back in the office in Kerckhoff, Newlove used the downtime to do
some office work.
"The one thing about this restaurant is I don’t have an office
staff," he said, "I have to do it all."
Newlove previously worked with Marriot Hotel as a hotel
restaurant manager, a business in which his wife is also involved.
It was when he got married that he landed at UCLA.
After his honeymoon, Newlove was hospitalized with pneumonia for
five days. "Marriot got pissed," he explained, "so I sent an
application to ASUCLA."
Of the two locales, Newlove prefers the Bruin campus.
However, keeping the balance between work and family life is one
strain Newlove must endure.
"I have a two-and-a-half-year-old daughter who goes to bed at
7:30 every night," Newlove said, "and there’s a little boy on his
way. That’s the hardest part. Like last night, I only got to see my
daughter for 10 minutes."
On the other hand, the opportunity to build friendships with
students is the sweetener in his espresso – it makes the job easier
to handle.
Newlove pulled out a letter he had recently received from a
former employee, thanking him for the help he had given her on
writing a resume.
"That’s what makes my job really cool, that totally made my
day," he said, beaming.
The manager no doubt takes advantage of the chance to make
friends. Walking up and down Kerckhoff Hall proves that.
Each time he switched stations, he knew someone and their
story.
Around the 9 a.m. rush, Newlove hovered around the coffeehouse
counter.
Waiting in line was Scott Chandler, one of the two people with
whom Newlove shares the privilege of choosing the coffee of the
month.
The professor in the physiological sciences department bought a
cup of joe and talked with Newlove.
"He runs a tight ship," Chandler said.
According to the manager, he and Chandler often go kayaking and
work out together.
"(Chandler) comes in twice a day," Newlove said, "for his LS
(life sciences) 2 class, he gives the students a list of questions,
and if they come in here and answer them right, they get a free
mug. Last time, we gave away 300 mugs."
The smaller third of Newlove’s duties include overseeing the
cart out on the Kerckhoff Patio.
Newlove walked out and made sure all the umbrellas were up and
the sandwiches were out. Throughout the day he made periodic checks
to keep everything running smoothly.
"At lunchtime the cart picks up," he said. "It’s almost like a
safety valve for people who just want brewed coffee."
Aside from monitoring the three coffee outlets, the coffee
machines, the temperatures of freezers and soup warmers, Newlove
must keep an extremely weighty worry in his mind: theft.
"There’s been some theft of cash and giving away of food," he
said. "Students don’t realize they must go to the dean. It’s a big
deal. One non-student was arrested last year."
A camera in the coffeehouse was put in as a deterrent, and
Newlove said it has been somewhat effective.
Counterfeit has recently been a problem, not just within
Kerckhoff Coffeehouse but in other ASUCLA markets as well.
"Someone has been passing counterfeit money," Newlove said while
picking up a reserve bag in an Ackerman office. "It counts as a
shortage for us because we can’t redeem it. They try to pass it off
when it gets really busy."
Newlove said the coffeehouse alone has lost approximately $80,
while the whole system has suffered a loss of about $500.
Checking for counterfeit money can be cumbersome when a long
line of irritated, caffeine-addicted, sleep-deprived students are
waiting. And lines in Kerckhoff happen often.
Every now and then, to alleviate the pressure caused by the
students stacking up, Newlove acted as "barrista," a title given to
the person who operates the espresso machine behind the
counter.
Later on, when things on campus began to wind down, the tables
and chairs were full of students with open books, empty cups of
coffee and half-eaten bagels.
Behind the counter a "suicide bagel" was stuck between the tray
and glass. When Newlove saw the troubled bread item, he asked a
cashier to remove it.
The plunging baked good reminded him of other bagel
problems.
"Some of them look so similar, like the sun-dried tomato and
vegetable ones," he said. "We stopped selling chocolate chip bagels
because they looked just like the blueberry ones."
If a basketball game is scheduled, Newlove will head on over to
operate a small part of the total concessions at Pauley.
While the seats in Pauley Saturday were empty, Newlove ran
around getting uniform shirts for all the employees, taking
inventory of the food, making sure both regular and Kosher hot dogs
were stocked at the stand, and keeping the stand, located by the
exit, far enough away to meet fire code regulations .
"The purpose of management here, is mainly to give support, like
cheerleading," he said. "It’s just nice to get out of the
coffeehouse."
Throughout the whole time, before and during the game, Newlove
was climbing up and down the Pauley steps. If he ever entered a
stairmaster competition, this guy would win.
"My worst nightmare is falling down the stairs during a game on
national television," he said, shaking his head.
"He’s probably one of the best bosses I have had," said Gil
Cardon, a fifth-year sociology student and senior student
supervisor for Newlove. "He has the necessary technical skills and
knowledge of a good manager."
For Newlove, it’s more than that.
"It’s working with the students that I like the most, it’s what
makes it different from the rest," Newlove said, "This isn’t just a
dead-end job. If they want, students can get a lot out of
this."
(First) David Newlove, manager of several
coffeehouses on
campus, chats with a customer while ringing up an order.
(Second) Newlove has worked for ASUCLA for eight years.
(Third) With speed and expertise, Newlove whips up a coffee
drink, one of hundreds sold every day.