George's Bistro: What is it and are Darden students honest?

COMING BACK THIS WEEK:
- 24.7 in Cafe 67; come get food and drinks at low-low prices
- Payments are on your honor (both credit card and cash)
- With support from Abbott and student volunteers at Darden
- Starting Wednesday Oct 30th - Nov 4th

Origins:

During the first week of exams, I remember talking with a few students at Cafe 67, and the topic of food availability at Darden came up.
Why wasn't there anything to eat over the weekend or in the evenings?
Why did students sometimes go to LT hungry?
What happened if students didn't have cars to go off-campus easily?

More importantly, it begged the question; where was the heart of Darden? If First Coffee was the daily reminder of Darden's special community, then wouldn't a 24/7 point of meeting like a bistro be another meaningful point of community?

That is the purpose of a Bistro. A Parisian concept, Bistros serve affordable meals to the community and are a gathering place for people to connect and share. That is part of the vision for this initiative.
Furthermore, our hope is to plow the profits back into the school, supporting future student initiatives.

Will George's Bistro be forever called George's Bistro? Maybe or maybe not. However, for now the vision of building upon the community of trust at Darden is clear.

Past Performance: Are Students at Darden Honest?:

YES!
We started the diner with $150 in capital to buy inventory. Over the course of 1 exam term, students purchased 450 items for 50 cents each (except for the 50% fire-sale on the last day)
Our total revenue after just 4 days was $220, leading to a substantial profit on the investment. What did we do with it? Some was used to treat the FY volunteers, and the balance used to launch the Term 2 pilot.

Overall: 98% of students paid for their purchases!

We want to keep the momentum going. Our hope is that students will be just as honest with credit cards as they were with cash.

Email us if you have any questions or would like to learn more at JainC14@darden.virginia.edu

I would also be remiss if I did not mention that none of this would have been possible without the work and ideas of the FY and SY students who have helped pioneer this.

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Thanks To:
Archana Rao, Akansha Jain, Gal Avrahamy, Paikea Liu, Anant Sharma, Jayalaxmi Shekarraju, Navaneetha Gunti, Radhika Kanuga, Ranjit Damodaran, Sumat Mittal, Vasishta Atmuri, Vrinda Grover, Sidhartha Thakur

Also the EMDC board:
Rohan Poojara, Kyle Simmons, Andrew Massaro, Sylvester Fejokwu

And Frank/Veronica Warnock and Abbot staff and leadership.