The cafeteria on campus officially opened its doors for a soft opening on the bottom floor of the Library/Learning Crossroads on Tuesday, March 25.
Regular hours for Lovebirds Café and Bakery will be Monday through Friday between 7 a.m.- 7 p.m. and Saturday and Sunday from 8 a.m.- 3 p.m. They will be closed on Sunday. They are currently expecting the cafe to remain open through summer session while testing out their hours and even opening their doors Saturdays to students.
“The goal was to get their feet wet and then do more of an announcement,” Rolf Schleicher, vice president of administrative services said.
The owners of Lovebirds Café, brothers John and Jahan Jomehri were setting up for the opening with the manager Fonzie Aliga at 7 a.m.
Lovebirds Café prides themselves on the quality of their food, according to Aliga.
An assortment of pastries including coffee cake, cinnamon buns, muffins, and croissants will be available daily. Above their display case is a menu with a variety of smoothie and coffee selections. A variety of grab n’ go sandwiches will also be available.
“The smoothies are all organic,” John Jomehri said. “They do not have ice in them.”
The espresso machine is manual and allows the cafe to make just the right type of coffee for their customers.
“I like making custom drinks for people,” Aliga said.
Students and faculty arrived at the new cafe at 8 a.m. to be some of the first customers to experience the new addition to the campus.
“I’ve been waiting for it to open,” Maria Lopez, 20-year-old web design major said.
The new cafe also drew the interest from the campus sheriff’s department.
“We were driving around and decided to check it out,” Justin Ramos, a sheriff’s security officer said. “I think it’s nice. It’ll be good for students.”
The food trucks positioned around campus will continue to operate.
“We are planning to leave our trucks on campus,” Larry Kraus, associate vice president of administrative services. “We are going to move some of them around a bit.”
Administration may also look in to using a full time distributor after Love Birds fulfills their contract on December 31.
“Right now we’re going to concentrate on opening the Lovebirds Café,” said Schleicher. “We’re not going to go too far because the district didn’t want us to open that because of a global contract. We felt the need was high here. We took a little grief for it, but it was well worth it. So it’s not a full fledged food court by any means. We’d love to have some independent vendors come in like Subway, and Panda Express and all that. It’s going to be viable. And we’ve got to have capitalization. No one is moving into these spots for friendships. they move in because they want to make money.”
Lovebirds is also considering extending their hours during midterm and final exams, though “nothing is set in stone,” Aliga said.
“Let’s just see what the demand is,” Kraus said.
