Wiess College sophomore Morgan Bates lives off campus, but when she’s at Rice it’s Coffeehouse that anchors her daily life. “It's basically the only place on campus that I ever go,” Bates said. “So whenever I'm on campus, I'm either here or in class.”
The drinks are good and — even better — reasonably priced, the social sciences major said. But it’s the culture of Coffeehouse, which celebrated its 30th anniversary this week, that has made it such a centralizing force on campus.
“Coffeehouse is a place where you can come and interact with people from other colleges,” Bates said. “Probably every single friend that I have from a different college I have met at Coffeehouse.”
From its inauspicious beginnings in the basement of Hanszen College in the 1960s, Coffeehouse eventually moved above ground and across campus in 1990, occupying the space that 4.Tac0 now calls home before settling into its current spot: a large, light-filled shop with a fireplace at one end and dozens of chairs and couches occupied by a constant rotation of students, whether working behind the counter or mingling over matcha green tea lattes.
Originally conceived of as a nonalcoholic alternative for on-campus student socializing, said McMurtry College senior Sarah Gao, Coffeehouse has become much more than somewhere to grab a cup of coffee and study. For students like Bates, it’s a second home. For students like Gao, a two-time manager herself, it’s an opportunity to serve and learn from her peers.
“I think especially on a college campus, a coffee shop is very necessary for the well-being of the school as a whole,” Gao said.
Coffeehouse was Rice’s first student-run business and remains its most successful. It’s rumored to be one of the highest-volume privately owned coffee shops in Houston — a claim that’s difficult to verify but easy to believe if you’ve seen the long lines that stretch outside and down the hall of the Ley Student Center. Coffeehouse estimates it pours between 400 and 600 cups of drip coffee a day alone.
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