The coffee shop that is most busy between 10 minutes before the hour and 10 minutes after the hour hands down is The Front Room, located on the fourth floor of Baker University Center. Sure, Baker is mostly used for its restrooms, air conditioning and escalators, but The Front Room is definitely the hot spot of the fourth floor.
The Front Room has a variety of espresso drinks, Starbucks coffee, Tazo teas, fountain drinks, a frozen treat called a Creamice on the menu as well as a bounty of baked goods and lunch foods in the front display.
The espresso drinks are nothing spectacular. But, they have caffeine; therefore, students gulp them down. I am not a fan of Starbucks coffee - I know people who swear by it and are complete Starbucks snobs - but Pike Place Roast really just doesn't get it going for me. So if I'm going to get a drink at The Front Room, it's going to be a latte.
However, I think the most popular drink is the Creamice. It's basically a more expensive McCafe Frappe from McDonald's, except it comes in a variety of flavors and can have a shot of espresso added easily.
A great feature at The Front Room is Open Mic Night, which occurs from 8 p.m. to midnight every Friday. The evenings are led by the extremely talented Bruce Dalzell - an Athens singer, songwriter and piano technician - and are open to anyone to perform.
A not so great feature of The Front Room is the line. If you want to get a drink really quickly between classes, you aren't going to be able to. I'm not sure if the slow moving, 15-person line is a result of poorly trained baristas or just a slow espresso machine, but it is almost impossible to get a drink or treat and still have time to get to Morton Hall before 10 after.
If you look around The Front Room, you will observe people studying with headphones plugged into their ears so no one will approach them, friends meeting up for lunch or coffee, professors reviewing projects with students, professors having meetings with other professors and little kids running around with their alumni parents.
Overall, The Front Room might not have the most tasty coffee, but for the between-class caffeine jolt, it has the best location to get a cup of joe on campus.
Elaine McKinley is a junior studying English and history. If you've performed at The Front Room's Open Mic Night, e-mail her at em212707@ohiou.edu
4 Opinion
Elaine McKinley
