The Saxbys on Rowan University’s campus is a rather hot commodity with its students, and this can lead to exponential wait times for a cup of coffee. It’s no secret that college students love to stop for a café break every now and then, and with college campuses such as Rowan putting them on their campuses, that gives students a perfect excuse to have a little break throughout the day.
When considering the crowd this coffee shop brings in, Rowan is fortunate to have two separate locations for the Saxbys shops. One location is in the Business Hall, and the other location is in the central campus hub of the Chamberlain Student Center.
What makes the Saxbys shops different from other cafes near the campus is that they are run by the students themselves and they serve the student community. Saxbys encourages student leadership through positions such as their Student CEO, which allows a student worker to be chosen to run the shop and receive academic credit for their part in the business.
Even with these benefits, students who order from Saxbys often find themselves waiting in a long queue when placing an order from the cafe. Some students have also noticed a difference between the amount of customers that go to each location and the comparison between the wait times.
Student Matthew Veneziano, a junior music industry major, enjoys purchasing a meal and drink from Saxbys from time to time, though he does prefer one location over the other.
“I think they’re great, actually. The [wait times] in Business are much better than the student center because it’s less people here, ” said Veneziano.
This is a sentiment somewhat shared by student Aydin Coops, a senior supply chain, logistics, and marketing major, who is also an employee at the Saxbys at the Business Hall. Coops agrees that popularity is the main reason for the inflated times.
“I would say the wait times [at Business Hall], honestly, aren’t that bad, and usually the orders come out in a timely fashion, but a lot of times when classes get out, there’ll be like a 40-person line. It could take 40-50 minutes because that’s a lot of people ordering, but that’s also just because it’s in demand,” said Coops.
However, Coops shared that both locations do get inflated times, even though he doesn’t work at the student center, he imagines the business that goes on there, but is grateful for there being two locations due to popularity.
“I’m not working at the student center, but I’d say it definitely gets busy here, but I’d imagine the student center could possibly get busier. But overall, [orders] can flow in a timely manner, so everything’s fast… It’d be hard to deal with a solution because of popularity; the more popular something is, the longer the wait time is going to be, so having two Saxbys definitely helps with the problem. Now you have two options,” said Coops.
Jada Low, a freshman psychology major, prefers to utilize the Saxbys in the student center, preferably when it’s earlier, but acknowledges the issue of the wait times as the day moves along.
“Super early in the morning, it’s not too bad, but as the day goes on, it’s definitely a long wait after a while,” said Low.
Low also shared how she likes the GrubHub app that manages the orders in the Saxbys, but she does have issues with it sometimes, and that could be a factor in the problem, but notices the workers do make adjustments.
“I do like GrubHub, it just doesn’t notify me when my things are done all the time. I don’t understand why it does that. But I feel like the workers are very nice, if there’s any mistakes in my orders, they’re willing to help, so I love that,” said Low.
The Saxbys locations on Rowan University’s campus have had a positive impact on the greater Rowan community. But with anything out there in the world, there have been issues with the way it gets run sometimes, such as the problem with waiting times. The ever-growing popularity of going to one of these locations, combined with the need to take a break during a long day and the growing student population, makes sense that there are long lines.
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