Our school store has surpassed other high schools’, and even colleges, but have we peaked too soon? Since the end of 2015, The Beestro Café has gradually increased their sales and new innovations started to appear. With a frappe machine, custom cups, and even custom trashcans, it brings up a question: what else is to come? In a school store with a complementary phone-charging station, unimaginably anything. We have all at the tip of our fingers, is it possible that we’ve already reached the end?

The Beestro manager, Kerri Mack, runs the cash register, orders supply, and makes beverages on a day-to-day basis. Our school store has evolved in the past two years, and the Beestro in the past wasn’t as grand in that time; as Kerri describes, “Three years ago it was 100% grab and go, no food was made here. There was about one table and two chairs. Since then, inventory has expanded by fifty products, so we’ve been trying to make it feel like a hangout/study space.” We’ve already achieved that feeling and the snacks are just fine, so I asked for her opinion on what it will be like in three years. “A regular, full-service café is what we’re hoping for. Freshly baked goods, and not just cookies, but food like bagels in the morning and sandwiches in the afternoon. Basically anything you could get from Starbucks.”

With Starbucks’s innovative transition from a walk-in order café to a practical restaurant serving meal-sized food, is it true that our own school store could become our next cafeteria? Since our switch from Sodexo to Culinart, the school has received mixed signals about the apparent leap from ‘tasty’ to ‘healthy’. Alicia Argueta says, “It doesn’t matter to me, I think it’s good that the food is healthy.” The school is divided on this one question: “Tasty or fresh?” “I would buy a sandwich at the Beestro on the school menu’s off-days.” Alicia commented, however Thana Schrock’s opinion conflicts. “I wouldn’t because I’m trying to stay healthy.” The school’s impressions seem to be fifty-fifty about the topic, but if we do become a practical Starbucks, what about the question: Is reprimanding the Beestro necessary? Could there be a better way to resolve this lunch dilemma?

It’s impossible to know what will happen and jumping the gun on a complication that hasn’t even arisen yet seems counterproductive, but the only compromise is lacking a true answer. As for whether we’ve reached the top yet, getting a student’s consensus and Kerri’s ideas helped resolve my concern, which goes hand in hand with the settlement. My answer and compromise: We have a long ways to go, and we’ll get there when we get there.