For students living on the North side of campus, North Village Café was a place where many found comfort. The small building filled with colorful booths and art gave the café an urban feel. In the evenings, after classes and extracurricular activities ended, laughter and groups of friends relaxing and enjoying some of North Village’s famous dishes filled the café. North Village Café along with other popular hangout spots, such as the 1891 Bistro, were forced to close temporarily due to the pandemic.

According to an announcement made by CWU, faculty and staff are working on a plan to interact with students in person, to reopen fully in fall 2021 and deliver courses primarily in person. Which means places like the Bistro and North Village will need to be ready to reopen. According to Executive Campus Chef Joe Ritchie, one of the important things for the reopening of North Village is being able to offer a mobile pick-up point there. 

Mobile ordering has been successful since being launched during fall 2020, said Director of Dining Services Dean Masuccio, and Dining Services is seeing a 40% or more increase in participation where it’s available. 

Although nothing has been finalized, Ritchie said there are discussions of expanding the market side of North Village with more grocery options, providing basic groceries for students who cook in their on-campus apartment or students that live across the street of North Village, while still recognizing that many students that enjoyed eating there were upperclassmen or students that lived off campus. 

“We really want to keep that identity and increase the number of offerings like mobile, and then also maybe increase the coffee offerings,” Ritchie said. 

However, Masuccio said there are changes that may need to happen to support an extended market at North Village. As of now, those are the only discussions of renovations, but most ideas are being discussed with the student and dining advisory board and hope to meet next month to offer more ideas and solidify final plans. 

“Will it be different? It will be different. Will there be an opportunity to still have great memories? For sure, that’s part of our intent,” Masuccio said. 

Part of the plan for North Village is also to expand the hours of operations, so students can go for coffee in the morning. This was decided in an effort to meet more of the student demand, since in the past the location was more centered around lunch time to early evening. 

“We believe with the refresh and the expanded market, and still providing those fan favorites that it will become even more of a destination spot for a broader group of students,” Ritchie said.