Coffeehouse critique unconstructive
Though numerous on-campus locations could do with a remodel, most of the accusations and suggestions for UCLA coffee houses offered by Tristan Reed in “Put a lid on bad campus coffee” (Jan. 18) are inaccurate, unhelpful and trivial. Although many patrons do “tend to leave immediately,” they are more likely to be hurrying to class than driven away by the employees’ “drab, blue-gray polo shirts.”
Furthermore, I am confused as to how bringing in an even larger chain as the sole supplier of all the campus coffee shops would be an improvement on “ASUCLA’s stultifying monopoly.” Are the two Starbucks, two Coffee Beans and the Peet’s between UCLA and Wilshire such an insufficient representation of the corporate coffee chains that the campus itself should be converted as well?
Though new furniture and a better sound system should be somewhere on the list of improvements to campus coffee shops, the proposed “armchairs and deep couches” are simply not practical given the treatment the current furniture receives from customers. Though the spill-resistant couches at Jimmy’s may be “garish” and outdated in appearance, they admirably withstand ““ along with the other furniture ““ the spills, abuse and piles of trash the many less-than-conscientious customers inflict upon them, with a durability that antique, comfortable chairs could not match.
At least in the case of Jimmy’s, the music actually reflects the varied tastes of different employees, who bring in CDs and hook up their MP3 players to the sound system to offer an eclectic auditory atmosphere.
Even if Reed’s suggestions would create the ideal coffee houses he envisions, the funds required to implement them would be an improper use of funds. Considering the fact that Jimmy’s only obtained a new espresso machine this summer after months ““if not years ““ of struggling with one that barely functioned, allocating funds to hire an interior designer before remedying functional insufficiencies would be the real “travesty.”
Lauramarie Elizabeth Pope,
Third-year, English and psychology