While waiting for USC’s hospitality services to return our call about fair trade coffee, I checked out the one student-run coffee house on campus — Ground Zero Coffeehouse.
GZ serves organic fair trade — and only organic fair trade — coffee! The Roasterie Organic Line coffee, to be exact. At only $1 a cup. This gives me hope that, when students have a choice, they opt for fair trade.
Sadly, GZ’s only open mornings and nights (7 am-12 pm, 7 pm to 12 am). This pretty much excludes all the times when I’m on campus, though it’s still twice as many hours as GZ used to be open — The morning hours started only as of Tuesday this week. Maybe I should take this as a sign that I should change my 10 am wake up time –
Today, I dragged myself to school extra early to check it out — only a few minutes before noon, so only the dregs were left. The friendly student working the bar offered to make a new pot, but I’d already caffeined before getting there and declined. When she realized there was only about 1/2 a cup left, she gave it to me free of charge, along with 3 coupons for free coffee to distribute to my students.
Which I did. I was shocked to discover only 1 of my students was a daily coffee drinker, but a few other occasional drinkers said they wanted “free stuff.” Hopefully I’ll have some company the next time I get to campus before noon — I was the only one in the place today.
This might be because GZ’s really, really tough to find. To get there: Look across the street from the Registration building, walk down the path between Marks Hall and Trojan Residence Hall, and follow the arrows on the little white signs that point you down the winding alleyway (PDF map here).
Ground Zero Coffeehouse. University of Southern California. 3551 Trousdale Parkway. Los Angeles, CA 90089. 213-740-7394. gzprod@usc.edu
Our university’s student-operated coffeehouse is called “The Eighth Note.” It’s right off the main union’s “square” (where the union’s big activities are held). It’s rather gothic culturally and loud alternative music is played throughout the day, so I breeze in and out quickly. Coffee is 75 cents a cup and is Fair Trade (organic or not, I don’t know).
Comment by Fletch — September 9, 2005 @ 8:17 pm
Why’s it called The Eight Note? Is thre some gothic/alt rock reference I’m missing? Wow — 75 cents — Don’t see a lot of that anymore. I thought a buck was a huge bargain! But I don’t know how the standard of living in WI compares to CA. Fair trade coffee is $1.50 at Starbucks…
Comment by Siel — September 10, 2005 @ 8:12 pm
The best I can figure is that it’s the lowest pitch note out of eight, thus connoting a dark reference. I usually say “keep it,” so it ends up being a dollar a cup.
Comment by Fletch — September 11, 2005 @ 3:24 pm