Big City Bread Cafe purchased the adjoining building in order to have room to expand their indoor seating. The expansion is set to be done by the end of June.
Photo By: Courtney Smith
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Local eatery Big City Bread Cafe is currently getting an uptown makeover that will furnish the cafe with new booths, more indoor seating and a lot more space.
The renovation, planned to be ready by the end of June, will change the look of the cafe slightly and make it “a little more comfortable” for customers to move around and sit, according to the catering manager Jeremiah Petersen.
“Right now, people have a hard time moving around to sit down and it is sometimes hard for the food-runners to squeeze between the cafe tables to bring out people's food because all of the tables and chairs are so close together,” he said. “Hopefully, having booths and more space will let us space everything out a little so people won’t have to squeeze by everyone else's chair just to get to the bathroom.”
According to cashier Katie Andrew, a psychology and pre-Grady double major from Nashville, Ga., the interior expansion will allow the cafe to seat more than four times the number of customers inside the building, which currently only has the capacity for about 25 patrons at a time.
“I think it will really help the cafe because, right now, most of our seating is outside so people won’t come when it is raining or bad weather because they know we don't have a lot of room inside and it can get crowded,” she said. “But, if they know that we have lots of seats inside as well as the entire patio, I think people will be a lot more likely to come even if it’s not bright and beautiful outside.”
Despite the current economic recession and University summer vacation, the weather is the most important factor that determines the cafe's daily business and revenue, according to long-time employee Whitney Miley.
“I have worked here longer than anyone, other than the managers, and I haven’t even really noticed a decline in business here; I think we get about the same amount of business as we did last summer and the summer before,” the 21-year-old international affairs major from Cartersville said. “We even just opened back up for dinner every night now that the weather is getting nice enough for people to enjoy sitting outside at night.”
According to Miley, even though the expansion is expected to be finished in the summer, they think business will remain slow on summer weekdays. However, they expect the expansion will help the café’s business in the winter, and during Saturday and Sunday brunch.
“The weekdays are always slow, so I don’t think it will get a lot of use, especially now when the weather is beautiful, because people want to be outside,” she said. “But, it is going to be a god-send on Sunday after people get out of church, because the line is always out the door and we never have enough room for everyone waiting to order, let alone sit down at a table and eat.”
By:Courtney Smith
Edited By: Alex McKelvey
Courtney and Alex,
ReplyDeleteThis is an interesting story about a well-known business. It could use some more details, though. Fortunately, the cutline mentions that the restaurant is expanding into an adjoining building, because the story doesn't explain where all the new seating is going to come from. How big is the new building, and what was it used for previously? How long have the owners been thinking about this expansion? A little more information about the actual physical process would flesh out the interesting quotes from the employees.