After more than two years of closure, the Starbucks in Miami University’s Withrow Hall is back and growing in popularity among North Quad students.
Aramark manages Miami’s food and dining experience, and has been overseeing the operations of the on-campus Starbucks locations.
Christian Wallace, the marketing director for Aramark, said Withrow’s Starbucks had its soft opening on Oct. 10, and business took off the very next day.
“We would have loved to open the Withrow location at the beginning of the semester, but we just did not have the staff to operate Starbucks,” Wallace said. “It takes time once you get people hired. We have to train everyone and make sure all team members are able to operate under the brand standards of Starbucks.”
Another significant hurdle the Starbucks team faced when reopening was replacing old equipment with new models, all of which had to be ordered and sent to the location. Now that it’s open, Wallace said he and his team at Aramark are very excited about the steady increase in demand it is seeing.
However, it has not yet reached the demand it needs to compete with the Starbucks in the Shriver Center.
Seth Cogar, a sophomore majoring in data science and statistics, has worked at the Withrow Starbucks since its reopening and says he is looking forward to the popularity of the location growing as the holiday season arrives.
“It's definitely getting more popular now that the holiday items are out, but it is not as busy as Shriver Starbucks,” Cogar said. “However, I would say that this location is popular to everyone on campus because it’s super close to the engineering building, so it’s not completely out of the way for some people.”
Miami students Abby Moore and Izzy Hass, both first-year kinesiology majors, feel the demand of that Starbucks location is mainly from students that live on North Quad.
Hass said the Withrow Starbucks is much easier to get to for her and Moore because they live so close to it.
“Living on the north side of campus definitely makes the Withrow Starbucks more convenient to us,” Hass said.
Morgan Liden, a sophomore strategic communication major, and Zoe Heller, a junior strategic communication major, agree that the Withrow Starbucks mainly gets demand from students living on North Quad.
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The two students said they rarely go to the Shriver Starbucks for a cup of coffee because of the long lines, and Liden said she rarely goes to the Withrow Starbucks because of how out of the way it is for her.
“I only really consider going when I’m on that side of campus, but I haven’t been on the North Campus very much because I live closer to Shriver,” Liden said.
Heller shared similar concerns.
“It’s pretty out of the way for me just because I live off campus and all of my classes are kind of in the area [of the Shriver Center],” Heller said. “I guess maybe one day I will go, but I haven't really considered it yet.”
Hours for the Withrow Starbucks can be found on Miami’s website under dining.
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