It seems that over the past few years, Murray-Dodge has succumbed to its own growing popularity and a change in administrative structure. "Akbar and Jeff's" once alternative refuge looks increasingly like Cafe Viv and other commercial venues. The notebooks containing art, poems, sayings and stories of students have been shoved into forgotten cabinets; the phrases painted on the walls have been scraped away. Slogans and signs for expensive weekly events overshadow its classic comforts. Weekly, the mom's kitchen-style cookies and do-it-yourself tea of the old days are shoved aside by crowds gathering for prizes like free T-shirts, iPods, pizza or Bent Spoon, turning the cafe into another USG study break-style thoroughfare where students don't engage with each other like they used to.
It was strange to see the doors of a club that's "always open" shut for so long, not opening until a good two weeks into the school year - three weeks after the freshmen arrived. Indeed, complaints about early closings because student workers "didn't feel like" keeping it open and burnt cookies served by tart student staffers have become a rising din in the last year and a half. This attitude undermines the warmth of the cafe where workers sometimes unwittingly serve as wise counsel and daily smile for the many students who pass through the cafe doors on a regular basis. Now, it is not unheard of for student workers to tease customers to their faces and behind their backs, ruining the experience for them and others in the cafe.
When the cafe finally did open this year, shockingly, the opening event, "Chocolate Fondue Night," was listed on facebook.com as an "Erotic Party." I am sure that University officials would be shocked to know that they are supporting "Erotic Parties," especially ones that take place in the ORL building. This may be funny to cafe managers, but what impression does that send to students who want to attend the event? Murray-Dodge is supposed to be open to all, not the select few privy to the inside jokes of the cafe employee circle.
Factors leading to this may be a disconnect between the University staff in charge of the cafe and its actual functions. Few of the ORL officials in charge of maintaining its facilities have ever attended a night of its operation. This may detach administrators from a perception of what the cafe is and how it is run. The co-manager structure, under which the cafe was run for decades, was also recently changed to a more hierarchical structure undercutting the previous consensus decision-making among workers. These and other changes may have tangential improvements, like better equipment for the cafe and a fancy website, but if they are at the cost of the cafe's founding ideals and putting off customers, they might not be worth it.
The cafe is a place to exchange ideas, meet people and feel at home over a cup of tea and a fresh cookie in this sometimes harsh academic environment. This cannot be achieved when staffers give sub-par service, forgotten chocolate spills attract bugs in the corner, and Saturday night events undermine the simplicity of the cafe's success. The age-old recipe of cookies and smiles has drifted far from its inception. Maybe it's time to go back to what the cafe was founded for, instead of trying to change a recipe that worked for so long.
Emily Norris is a Wilson School major from Brookline, Mass. She can be reached at enorris@princeton.edu.
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