Starting this fall, Reid café replaced their Starbucks coffee brand with Carte Coffee, a local business in downtown Walla Walla.
The owner of Carte Coffee Ryan Vigil, expressed that he always tried to think of students at his own café. Bon Appétit’s new business partner expressed views consistent with those of Whitman College students, from the charging outlets at every table to the student discount. Ryan explained that Carte Coffee attempts to create a welcoming space for students to drink discounted coffee, focus on the demands of a college workload and occasionally stop back at the register for a free refill. Now that Reid café serves Carte Coffee, Vigil hopes to bring that culture directly to the Whitman College community.
“It was sort of a natural fit, of course business-wise, but culturally as well. We think our product will be appreciated [at Whitman College],” Vigil said.
Students seemed eager about the switch as well. Amongst the students I talked to, Gracie Rosen seemed more enthusiastic than anyone else.
“I am very happy about the switch, I go to Carte in town whenever I can. I am not a fan of Starbucks at all, so this was a very welcome change,” Rosen said.
Others expressed similar feelings about Starbucks and welcomed the availability of a local shop like Carte in Reid café, where they could easily stop by before class or after picking up a package in the mail room.
For Vigil, it isn’t just the coffee that he hopes to offer to students.
“The thing that I’m most excited about is the interaction that we’re going to have with the students. It goes beyond the discount here. We’re going to be putting on coffee sensory experiences on a regular basis. Multiple times a semester we’re going to be doing some sort of fun coffee thing where the students can interact,” Vigil said.
Vigil pointed to Carte’s roasting facility and samples of rare coffee in Reid café as possibilities for this student engagement.
Vigil explains that his enthusiasm for this new partnership is rooted in his love for coffee. From Walla Walla Roastery, which he still sells in his own café, to opening up Carte Coffee in 2017, Vigil notes that he has always seen coffee as a way to connect the Walla Walla community.
Shannon Null, the general manager for Bon Appétit at Whitman, describes a similar interest in community engagement and guarantees that 20 percent of all purchasing comes from local producers. Although coffee is a global resource, Carte’s recently opened roasting facility, located just 20 miles from Walla Walla, makes this partnership possible for Bon Appétit. Null also described the other standards that made this opportunity possible.
“We have a dual global and local sustainable coffee commitment,” Null said.
Null also talked about the certification process that Carte Coffee had to undergo.
“They had to get certified through Bon Appétit as a farm to fork vendor. . .they are all about working with our values too, like sustainability, supporting farmers and using fair trade beans,” Null said.
For students like Rosen who value coffee for the continuity it brings to their day and pay attention to the things they consume, these commitments will be welcomed. Reid’s decision to discontinue Starbucks has also notably been welcomed by students who participate in boycotting the large chain.
Students, vendors and managers speak about how community partnerships are better than big business when possible. Vigil brought up Whitman’s trouble with community engagement in the past, but thinks that is changing, citing his own partnership as evidence. Student reception leans positive, noting that this partnership creates a unique opportunity for collaboration with Whitman and the Walla Walla community more broadly.
