Student Council Coffee Shop

In June of 2024, I was voluntold for sponsoring Student Council at my campus. This type of occurrence seems to be common for me, and yet I am always caught off guard. Because I hate the thought of disappointing anyone, I agreed even though I had NO idea what it would entail.

Fast-forward a year, and I was feeling pretty good about it. One of my partner teachers was roped into sponsoring with me, and frankly, we felt like we killed it our first year. I didn’t expect to implement anything huge in our second year.

But…plans change and we got an idea that was too fun to pass up. We decided that as part of our weekly meetings, we would open a coffee shop for teachers. With the profits, we planned to purchase items that would enhance the experiences of other student clubs on our campus.

Thus, *Starducks* was born. (Our mascot is a duck! We were between this and Duck Bros, which would have been amazing as well.)

We started out small- with three options of iced drinks with cold foam. We tested them extensively (on our willing team members!)

Our process for iced drinks (which has been refined over the months!) is fairly simple:

1. Label the cups with the teacher’s name and drink.
2. Pour iced coffee into the cups- about 2/3 of the way full.
3. Add 2-3 pumps of Torani Syrup- we mostly use vanilla or caramel.
4. Add just a bit of instant espresso made with this espresso powder– teachers need that extra kick of caffeine, y’all.
5. All of these steps are done before ice. We add ice as we make the cold foam so nothing gets too watered down! We make sure to leave some room for cold foam or it can make a big mess when adding the lid.
6. Make cold foam! We use this milk frother which is nice because it can do hot or cold. All we do is add heavy whipping cream and flavoring (either Torani syrup or Nestle La Lechera Dulce de Leche)
7. Pour the cold foam on top and then it’s time for the students’ favorite part: make it cutesy. We add sauce on top and sometimes, seasonal sprinkles or spices.
8. Slap a top on and use one of your extremely willing student runners to provide delivery service!

The first day we did this was rough. We had too many (overeager) kids and not enough structure. But, we have learned a lot and the kids absolutely adore being a part of our Friday coffee shop.

Less popular (though admittedly simpler) are our hot drinks, added a few months into this experience. For hot drinks, we:

1. Pump the Torani syrup (or, for mochas, one of these Ghiradelli sauces!) into the hot cups.
2. Brew espresso into the cup using our original Nespresso machine.
3. Froth whole milk in the same milk frother (we do have multiple!) and pour over the espresso and syrup.
4. Dress with additional sauce as needed!

This is far from our biggest money maker (more to come on those later!), but my little baristas enjoy it immensely, it’s been very cool for school culture, and we have been able to donate supplies to both our pep squad and our Rubiks Cube club.

More to come!