Cafe Vivian cuts hours

In the year since its fall 2008 re-opening, Cafe Vivian became a favorite late-night hangout and study space. Much of the cafe’s popularity came from its extended hours, Ashton Miller ’13 noted.

“I come [here] from Chancellor Green, because that closes at, like, 11 [p.m.],” he said.

Under its new operating hours, however, Cafe Vivian’s availability is significantly reduced. Most notably, the cafe now closes at 4 p.m. on Thursdays and does not open on Saturdays — last year, it was open until 2:45 a.m. on both of those days. Closing times for the other days of the week have been pushed up as well: from 2:45 a.m. to 11 p.m. on Friday nights, and from 1:45 a.m. to midnight on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday nights.

“It is quite common to review the operating hours of any retail facility after the first year of service,” Orefice said. “In this case, many of these reductions in operating hours would have taken place regardless of the goal of meeting the budget [cuts] target the University set.”

Orefice also explained that the decision to change the operating hours was based on an analysis of retail traffic at the cafe. That analysis, he said, showed reduced patronage during evenings and on Saturdays, even though the new operating hours affect not just the servery and its patrons but the entire study space, which is locked down whenever the servery is closed.

Miller and William Ellis ’12, who called Cafe Vivian his former “Saturday afternoon hotspot,” both said that the new hours are “an inconvenience.”

“On weekdays I come here a lot, and then on weekends I stop by Viv [Cafe Vivian] for an hour, and it’s like, ‘Oh, wait, it’s closed,’ like Forbes,” Miller explained, citing the recently announced decision to shut down the dining hall in Forbes College on Saturdays for the rest of this semester.

“Couldn’t they just leave the area open and leave the food out?” Ellis said. “Cafe Viv’s main purpose for me is not the food.”

Orefice explained that the entire cafe needs to be closed when the servery is closed because the retail portion of the cafe is “without secure partitions.” But students said that they are losing a unique study space and one of the few areas in Frist with immediate access to electrical outlets for laptops.

Though most of Frist remains open for students during regular hours, Miller and Ellis both noted that the area outside Cafe Vivian is usually crowded and much harder to work in.

“I can’t focus [outside Cafe Vivian] because there’s so much going on, and there are people going by that you know, and so you keep looking up,” Miller explained, noting that the noise from both TV lounges is often very distracting.

Cafe Vivian is “slightly more secluded … just enough so that you can get work done,” Ellis added, noting that it provides a unique place to work in because of its quiet yet relaxed environment.