Student baristas learn while operating their own business
By Stefan Yablonski
Rich and Pour Café is more than another coffee spot on campus — it’s a hands-on learning experience, a hub for student innovation and a growing part of the SUNY Oswego community.
Rich N’ Pour Cafe — a student-led, student-run cafe — is open to the campus and community after hard work by students in a SUNY Oswego business class.
The cafe is staffed by more than 20 student baristas serving up Finger Lakes Coffee Roasters-infused beverages and baked goods. They run the cafe through their Management 444 course. The café is located in the former Wall Street Cafe, which closed in 2022, in the Rich Hall atrium lobby.
“I am so proud of that. We are the only student-led student-run café in the entire SUNY system,” said Irene Scruton, assistant dean and director of MBA programs at SUNY Oswego. “We run the class every semester with new students. They are treated as a board of directors. They make all the decisions regarding the café.”
Scruton teaches the course with Oswego alumnus and community entrepreneur Ed Alberts serving as senior adviser.
It is a partnership with Auxiliary Services. It is run out of the School of Business,” she explained.
“We have a class once a week where you combine the operational decision making with some academic content,” she said.
“Those students are just fantastic,” Scruton continued. “They make decisions; they have got to pull numbers, make decisions about what products to serve, what price to charge and more.
“We are very much a lab — we consider it a live lab for the campus. The students test out new products, they test out new pricing and new campaigns. We are kind of a new product hub.”
They meet with Auxiliary Services who sees what the students are doing and offer advice or guidance, Scruton explained.
“That has been a great project. I have tremendous students. I have tremendous faculty that I work with. We meet every Tuesday,” she said. “It is a transformational experience. If you talk with the students — who they are on the first day of class is not who they are by the end of the class. They build a lot of confidence because they are able to solve problems. They actually hire the students to work in the café. They have to deal with all the human resources issues that come up about running a business — the cash, ordering products, inventory control. It’s a lot. It’s like literally the guts of running a business.”
Remarkable experience
Last semester, four students, like board officers, made a presentation with the Oswego Alumni’s board of directors. These students gave a presentation that really could have held its own with anybody in corporate America, according to Scruton. “They came in dressed, with slides and they gave such an exceptional presentation about the café that the alumni were just blown away. They were just so happy to see this and how important this experience of learning opportunity is to the students.
“It’s a remarkable experience. It can be frustrating for them. They are making decisions and sometimes they don’t work out the way you want them to. But it is our job as faculty to help them see it all — make corrections and move on. That gives them a lot of confidence.”
Building on prior success
This is the only such place on this side of campus.
Faculty and students in the building sometimes have back-to-back classes. If they want to grab a coffee or a snack they don’t need to go somewhere else.
The class has worked very hard to make it a cozy welcoming lounge area. A lot of students just meet there. You’ll see some faculty sitting with students.
“They have created a welcoming space. You walk into Rich Hall and it’s right there, so you want it to be a hustling bustling environment,” Scruton said. “This semester we are going to try to get electronic menus up and running.
“Each semester the class builds on the success of the prior class. Each semester you are working on improving on the prior semester. Let’s increase sales let’s increase efficiency — we always want to make sure we make a profit — even if you just make a dollar, you have got to make a profit. There is a lot of learning that goes on. It’s just a tremendous opportunity really.”
