Tucked away in the corner of DellPlain Hall’s lobby is a new place for students to satisfy their midnight munchies: the Breezeway Cafe.

The cafe is a collaboration between the Entrepreneurship Club, Syracuse University Food Services and the Creativity, Innovation and Entrepreneurship Living and Learning Community in DellPlain Hall.

The cafe, which is currently in its soft-opening phase, is only open Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays from 10 p.m. until 3 a.m. It accepts cash, SUpercard and credit cards, said Justin Hirschhaut, head of ventures for the Entrepreneurship Club and a sophomore entrepreneurship and emerging enterprises major.

The café will have its grand opening next Thursday, Oct. 11, he said.

As of right now, students need to be signed in to the building to access the cafe, but Hirschhaut said he is working with the Department of Public Safety, Residential Security Aides, the residence director of DellPlain and housing to resolve this issue.

“That is going to be changed. Just for safety issues right now, everybody that goes to the cafe outside of DellPlain has to be signed in,” Hirschhaut said. “It may just be that nearby dorm buildings can get in, but it sounds like it’s looking pretty positive.”

Hirschhaut said he has been working on starting the cafe since the end of the summer.

Despite the efforts of students to make the idea into a reality at the end of last year, the school didn’t support them at first because the university was worried the cafe would be too expensive, Hirschhaut said.

“Two weeks ago, I don’t even know if there was electricity back there,” Hirschhaut said. “I know they had to put in plumbing. There was no water, to my understanding. There was no equipment, that’s for sure.”

The cafe has only been open for two weeks, but Hirschhaut said it is managing to break even.

“This is still our soft-opening week and we haven’t done any marketing yet, and this week we have almost doubled our profits from last week,” Hirschhaut said.

The menu features sandwiches, pizza, ice cream, soda, hot chocolate and breakfast items, among other items.

Frank Pingatore, a freshman undeclared major in the College of Arts and Sciences and head of food management at Breezeway, said the pizzas and milkshakes have been the most popular items thus far.

“This week we are doing specialty pizzas and we are probably going to keep them on the menu, just because they’re so popular. Our barbeque and our buffalo chicken have been our top,” Pingatore said. “Last week for sure our milkshakes were.”

John Herb, a sophomore information management and technology major, said he has a soft spot for the cafe’s strawberry milkshakes.

“The nachos, they were OK,” Herb said. “But the strawberry milkshakes, that’s where it’s at.”

Freshman child and family studies major Elyse Davis said she enjoyed the cafe’s milkshakes, but wasn’t impressed with the way the cafe looked.

“I think they need to add a little more color to make the atmosphere more lively and fun,” she said.

The cafe will be decorated during the upcoming week in preparation for its grand opening, Hirschhaut said. The walls will be painted and one wall will feature a mural of the cafe’s logo, which was created by a DellPlain resident.

Hirschhaut also said students will be able to donate artwork to the cafe, which will be inserted into plastic table covers so that students can look at artwork while they eat.

Movie nights are also a possibility, Hirschhaut said. The cafe hopes to put on a movie in the DellPlain lounge every now and then so students can come in, grab some food and then watch a movie with their friends.

Hirschhaut also said that down the road, the managers hope the cafe will have a delivery service that will cater to all of campus.

Additionally, the cafe hopes to expand its hours in the future, but there is no definitive time set to make this change, Hirschhaut said.

 

Published on October 2, 2012 at 3:01 am

Contact David: dlauterb@syr.edu