Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf is creating a buzz on campus and
Westwood, but some are concerned that the chain’s
proliferation may put smaller coffee shops out of business.
UCLA Dining Services, as part of its Food Service Master Plan,
opened up a bid for various coffee enterprises to serve their brand
on the UCLA campus.
After Coffee Bean won the bidding process, its product line was
incorporated into on-campus restaurants, including the new Bruin
Cafe, a morning and late-night eatery near residence halls where
students can use their meal plans to purchase coffee, pastries and
other foods.
“Bruin Cafe came out of students’ wishes and
feedback from focus groups and surveys,” said Connie Foster,
assistant director of Dining Services.
Foster said that Coffee Bean was chosen over other coffee
companies because it was the highest bidder in the coffee services
auction and was able to provide services students wanted.
“Our goal is to assist UCLA Dining Services in providing
quality coffee and food to students,” said Lisa Pandolfini,
Coffee Bean’s business development manager.
Although many are glad to have an additional place to grab their
daily java, not all students agreed that Coffee Bean’s
emergence on campus was a good idea, since the chain’s
popularity could crowd out competition from smaller businesses.
“Opening up Coffee Bean will probably have an effect on
some of the business at (Ackerman boba stand) Relaxation and
Kerckhoff Coffeehouse. It should have been a smaller coffee shop
instead of a major corporation,” said Serena Vartazarian, a
first-year linguistics and anthropology student.
Others felt the benefits of Coffee Bean’s appearance would
outweigh its disadvantages.
“It’s not directly competing with other businesses
in Bruin Cafe, and students can also find work there,” said
Stephen Schneider, a fifth-year mechanical engineering student.
Schneider said Coffee Bean is the only prepared coffee available
for purchase near the residential halls.
When asked about Coffee Bean’s effect on other nearby
coffee businesses, the company’s public relations manager
Carl Larsen said, “Coffee Bean is an extension of the L.A.
market. We’ve never heard a problem, and we focus on
quality.”
Coffee Bean shops have been emerging around Westwood as well.
The coffee chain’s newest appearance is at UCLA Hillel, a
Jewish center with a focus on the UCLA community.
“We opened up a Coffee Bean here to serve student’s
needs. Coffee Bean is an entry point for people to increase their
intensity of learning and involvement with Judaism,” said
Chaim Seidler-Feller, director of Hillel.
He added that Coffee Bean has helped students become more
comfortable with doing homework, relaxing, and meeting others at
Hillel.
Trinh Pham, a first-year biology student and employee at
Hillel’s Coffee Bean, uses her wages from the store to help
pay for college.
“Coffee Bean’s a positive addition, and I’m
glad they added it to Hillel,” Pham said.
“Shouldn’t we be concerned with (the problems of)
bigger chains like Taco Bell?”
So far there have been no complaints against the addition of
Coffee Bean in Bruin Cafe and other areas, Foster said.
“We use their products but run the services
ourselves,” Foster said about Bruin Cafe.
“It’s our own operation, and we would still have to
purchase coffee products from businesses if we chose to make our
own coffee,” she said.