CHAPEL HILL, N.C. — Coffee is a staple of the college experience. Students at UNC Chapel Hill have taken the coffee experience one step further by opening and sustaining an entirely student owned and operated coffee shop that students can grab their coffee … in the meantime.
“I think it’s in the back of people's minds like are these students really going to pull this off, and we're like, 'yeah we are!'” said Mia Lerner, a barista at Meantime Coffee located in UNC’s Campus Y.
Meantime is not your average coffee shop, Lerner said, “it’s kind of just an organization that stands for everything good about making coffee and UNC.”
When the shop began serving coffee to fellow students five years ago the odds were stacked against them.
“It’s difficult sometimes when you don't have someone with a lot of experience. We’re all new at this,” she said.
Lerner, a junior at UNC, has been working at Meantime since her first year. But the side gig was never part of her long-term plan.
“I had no intention of working here, but I'm so glad I did like the happiest of accidents,” she said. “That type of customer service interaction is something I want to have for the rest of my life. Like I have another job, and I choose to keep my job at Meantime because I love it so much.”
Like the rest of her colleagues, Lerner works short shifts in between classes and gets paid a living wage. This is a benefit the founders kept up through the pandemic.
“I think it's in the back of people's minds like, 'are these students really going to pull this off' and we're like, 'yeah we are,'” Lerner said.
Meantime Coffee is owned and operated entirely by undergraduate students. The model initially prompted concerns as the pandemic disrupted campus life but has since proven successful.
“We’re looked at like we won't succeed because we are student-run, and I think during the pandemic people didn’t have faith in us to make it through,” Lerner said, “and there is a lot of pressure to be professional and put on a face so people take it seriously, and it's been hard to get looked at as an actual coffee shop, but I think that the community we have and the executive committee we have is really dedicated to having a professional environment.”
The underdog coffee shop just celebrated its fifth anniversary, one benchmark of what Lerner hopes to be a long future as a staple of UNC.
“I would love to come back here and get coffee like in five years, 10 years down the road, like I hope this coffee shop succeeds so badly like I don't want anything more than that,” Lerner said. “I love it so much, and I hope that I have that experience of seeing that coffee shop that helped build my college experience.”
