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Cafe Nourish

Venture name:

Cafe Nourish

Chapters:

Claremont, Hope

Description:

(Claremont) “Café Nourish is an on-campus, late-night café that Nourish hosts every Sunday from 8pm-12am. We sell delicious food and drinks to students; these goods are both donated by local businesses and made by students themselves. Each week, we present different entertainment groups, ranging from acapella concerts and small acoustic acts to Nourish discussion nights. Café Nourish is held in a centrally-located lounge on campus; a large but intimate space, complete with a bar of serving food, plenty of tables and chairs for socializing and studying, and ambient lighting.

Like a typical café, we make money by selling food and drinks. Student members volunteer to bake dessert – most often we well an arrangement of baked goods including brownies, cookies, and cupcakes. We also reach out to local businesses in our community to secure food donations as well, which we then sell. In the past, we have received discounts or donations from Lily’s Tacos, the Donut Man, Pita Pit, and I Like Pie.

People come to Café Nourish not only for the food, but for the fun and new space to do their homework, socialize, listen to live entertainment, and listen to speakers brought in by the Nourish Chapter. We only have one eatery on each of the five campuses, and these eateries sell the same types of fried food, which can get boring and less desirable throughout the year. Studying spaces on campus, such as our student center and the library, also can get easily tiresome. Café Nourish provides a change of scenery; a completely new space for students to explore, socialize, and study. The “lounge” we use as our venue is primarily used by the student body as a party venue. Our event is the only one of its kind to use the space. It is also the only one of its kind on campus. ”


Marketing:

(Claremont) “We showcase a wide variety of entertainment: student bands, performers, stand-up comedians, slam poets, acapella groups, and more, who have the chance to display their talents in a secured space. We provide student performers with a venue, recognition, advertisement, and a ready-made customer base while they provide us with even more customers.

When we have local businesses donate their food to us each week, we advertise for their business and promote them on our website and in our own materials.

We will begin advertising in both new and exciting and tried and tested ways. We will send out our weekly menu and entertainment line-up through our schools’ listservs. In addition, we will partner with a few other social justice clubs on campus to have nights when we pair with them for entertainment/advertising. We will undergo fun Facebook campaigns where we will feature the E-board and other Nourish members in creative ways (such as making a spoof of the Uncle Sam poster – “We want YOU to come drink Boba at Cafe Nourish. We will also encourage people to come through several deals and loyalty awards. We will have a drawing where anyone who likes our Facebook page and comes to Cafe Nourish is put into a drawing for Eureka! Burger and Yogurtland gift cards. In addition, we will make small punch cards and have deals such as “Buy 5 smoothies, get your 6th free!” We will also consider offering slight discounts to people who post and/or tweet a picture of them at Cafe Nourish.”


Number of Hours Spent Planning and Executing:

(Claremont) 1-2 hours planning, 2-3 hours per volunteer


Revenue and Expenses:

Expense ItemsCost
Boba Pearls$36.25
Micellaneous Decorations$4.91
Glue$1.99
Tissue Wrap$4.95
100 Small, Unscented Tea Candles$9.30
12 Mason Jars$9.71
Wood-Framed Chalkboard$36.95
Total Spent to Date$104.06
Date of VentureRevenue
Feb. 9, 2014$123.25
Feb. 16, 2014$68.001
Feb. 23, 2014$74.50
March 9, 2014$64.00
March 30, 2014$46.00
April 6, 2014$110.50
April 27, 2014$41.50
Total Earned to Date$527.75


Profits and Other benefits of Venture (Marketing for an upcoming event, advance ticket sales, social value created, etc.):

Claremont earned $423.69 during their Cafe Nourish campaign.


Challenges:

Finding nice items to sell and attracting customers on a regular basis.

To address this, brainstorm ideas about food or drink items that are missing on or around your campus, like Boba tea was at Claremont.


Tips:

(Claremont) “Figure out what items people are most interested in and sell those. Add new items around holidays such as candy corn cupcakes, or hot apple cider. During spring 2013, the Chapter experimented with tacos and they were very popular.

Claremont put a coupon for one free cookie under the door of every room in the dorm where they hold Cafe Nourish. While this reduced their overall profit, it really raised awareness about the sale among potential customers.

Claremont is trying to set up a partnership with many different coffee shops, bakeries, etc to offer a variety of goods.

It is fun to have live musicians, a cappella groups, or other performances and encourage people to stay and study or hang out there to create the coffee shop atmosphere. This also brings in fans of those groups to the cafe.

Location is very important. In spring 2013, the Chapter moved the cafe from a dorm lounge to a student lounge in the campus center and revenues increased.”


Would You Recommend To Other Chapters?:

If your Chapter has a space where they could hold this, connections to entertainment options or other social justice clubs, and a desire to hold a regular Venture with a lot of potential, this Venture could be for you!


Contact Info:

JD, Chapter Support Mentor – jd@nourish.org

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