Breezeway Cafe's Grand Opening

The Breezeway Cafe had its super soft opening on September 19th. It was in a shabby spare room, with gray blue walls, janky tables, and boring chairs. the cafe had no life at all. It has been a month of renovation and we finally had our beautiful grand opening. During all the decorating and painting, the cafe remained in full operation Thursdays through Saturdays.

BEFORE

AFTER

You're probably wondering how we got all the swag for the cafe. Easy peasy. Now, while we worked on this project, our sponsor, Professor Kingma, told us that the university wanted to see us succeed in our venture. If we needed anything, we had to contact FixIt (the university's housing and food services maintenance organization), our representative at Food Services, our representative at Kimmel Food Court, the Department of Public Safety (DPS), our residence director, our finance director at the iSchool, or the Schine Copy Center. All these people took students very seriously (Syriously?! YEAH!) and they helped us through all the obstacles that came with opening a student run cafe on the main floor of a residence hall. They provided us with paint, paint brushes, ink boards and pens, couches, lamps, tables, a sound system, advertising resources, tablecloths, and all the food and drinks in our cafe.

Justin cutting the ceremonial ribbon with our first customer from our soft opening, Jonathan 

My boss and supervising manager, Justin, oversaw the entire operation as a representative of the Entrepreneurship Club, known simply as the E-Club. He provided wise insight as well as radical ideas for running the cafe and keeping its workers in check. He is currently a sophomore involved in 11 other clubs on campus. Remember when I did salsa dancing in the beginning of the year? Justin was there. I didn't make that connection until recently. MIND = BLOWN. 

Supervisor Rachel at the register

Syracuse University is a Pepsi campus. Somehow, Professor Kingma talked to his connections and got Pepsi to sponsor a raffle for a Kindle Fire for our grand opening. It was the main attraction. Customers could get one raffle ticket for a purchase of at least $3 and two tickets for a purchase of at least $5. Not a bad deal, eh? 

Professor Kingma (left) and Supervisor Jay at the late night event 

 Professor Kingma is the head of the Creativity, Innovation and Entrepreneurship Learning Community at DellPlain. On the follow Monday, he emotionally told the class how proud he was of the cafe leadership for getting the business idea off the ground. He said this was the most successful venture he has ever seen and the only venture that turned a profit. Justin also added that the cafe leadership crew was the best group of people he had ever worked with in his teamwork experiences. All this was a major self-esteem boost.

 Overall, a success

I'm happy with the work I've done at the Breezeway Cafe. Hopefully, the business will continue to run for a while and all of the security logistics will get worked out so non-DellPlain residents can access the swag spot. There's still more work to be done, and there always will be. 

This wouldn't have happened without the help of Bruce, Jay, Hikari, Justin, Sue, Nate, FixIt, fellow mangers, employees, and miscellaneous painters. Many thanks to everyone that contributed to this huge success.

Photos watermarked "JR" are from JRosa Photography @ http://www.facebook.com/jrosaphotos