Four Winds Café back in business

With a new focus and a slimmed-down menu, the Four Winds Café has reopened, once again giving students a place for a midday snack and a place to relax on the Bayfront Campus.
Financial problems caused the cafe to close earlier this year. With some help from the College and Metz Culinary Management, the café’s supporters will seek to come up with a financial plan to keep the doors open for good.
For now, the Café, on Dort Promenade, will be open weekdays from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.
“I’m glad it’s back,” said second-year student Sarah Cooper, who was sitting at a table near a window. “It’s nice to have a place to go between classes.”
“Students have really been happy with the reopening,” said Bill Moore, the manager of Metz’s operations at New College. The café has been operating for about a week, slowly adding menu items and training student workers. “Every day we’ve added more” items for sale, he explained, with an emphasis on self-service in order to serve customers quickly. “We want to increase the speed of service as much as possible,” he explained.
The menu board advertises bagels, pastries and chips, along with coffee, tea, smoothies and other cold beverages. Moore said the Four Winds menu will remain mainly vegetarian, with gluten-free options. The café will eventually add more choices to the menu, said Metz’s Cyndi Beale, the day-to-day manager of the cafe.
The café will continue to employ student workers. Phoenix Kadzis, a second-year student, was behind the counter on her first day on the job. “It’s going pretty good,” she said. “I wanted a job on campus and this seemed like a good idea.”
Moore said the Four Winds will eventually return to hosting Friday night student events, such as open mic nights for music and poetry slams. “We’ll be displaying students’ artwork which can also be for sale,” Moore said. “We’re going to let the students decide what they want.”
— Jim DeLa is digital communications coordinator at New College of Florida.