After almost a decade of enjoying Starbucks coffee on campus, Duke students and employees can now purchase the coveted java off campus at the Starbucks in the American Tobacco Complex-and they can use their DukeCards.
The Starbucks in downtown Durham opened Sept. 12 and is accepting FLEX points. The University owns a license to the Starbucks retail store franchise, but ARAMARK Corporation-which operates several campus dining facilities-runs the ATC location.
"We actually don't own it. The lease agreement is with ARAMARK," said Jim Wulforst, director of dining services. "ARAMARK is responsible for managing it, paying the bills. It happens to be in an area where there are Duke employees that are working, and it was convenient to provide the FLEX card."
Wulforst noted that ARAMARK has the "ability to be full-blown operators of Starbucks stores."
After acquiring the ATC location, the next question became whether to allow people to use DukeCards to buy products at the store, Wulforst added.
Because between 1,200 and 1,300 Duke employees work in the ATC, officials said it was convenient to make coffee purchases on FLEX accounts available.
"That's not a Duke student community initiative; it's miles from Duke's campus," Wulforst noted.
Duke first introduced Starbucks beans on campus in 1996, when the University purchased a limited Starbucks license for Durham.
"At the time, our student dining advising committee wanted to have a brand name like Starbucks," Wulforst said.
As soon as Duke purchased the license, Trinity Cafe on East Campus stopped serving Cup of Joe's coffee and replaced it with the nationally popular Starbucks label.
It became the first location on campus to brew Starbucks.
At the time only three or four Starbucks locations existed in North Carolina, Executive Vice President Tallman Trask said.
"I like Starbucks-I spent 10 years in Seattle," he added.
Like Trinity Cafe, the Blue Devil Beanery started serving Starbucks coffee when it opened in McClendon Tower in 2002. Last December, Twinnie's in the Fitzpatrick Center for Interdisciplinary Engineering, Mathematics and Applied Sciences also started serving Starbucks.
Since that time, other locations around campus-including Chik-fil-A-have also started brewing Starbucks.
All sites are "we proudly brew"-locations, but they are not full Starbucks stores.
Although the location in ATC is a full Starbucks store, Trask said the University is not seeking to make a business venture out of it.
"We're not going to make any money," Trask said.
Although officials decided to make FLEX a payment option at the Starbucks in the ATC largely with employees in mind, students also said the convenience suits their tastes.
"I think that would be a good thing for me, since I am addicted to their Venti Shaken Black Iced Tea," senior Katie Adkins said.
"I wouldn't feel so guilty spending $2.09 every time I went in there [because] it would be my parents' money," she added.
Get The Chronicle straight to your inbox
Signup for our weekly newsletter. Cancel at any time.