Serving up Caffeine and Community: Eagles Line up for the Dav’s Lavender Lattes

Whether iced or hot, with cream and sugar or not, Americans love coffee a latte.

According to a Drive Research survey released earlier this year, roughly half of people in the US frequent a coffee shop at least once per week. At AU, faculty, staff, and students can get their fix from a trio of rivaling java joints-the Bridge Cafe, Davenport Coffee Lounge, and Starbucks-located no more than a three-minute walk from one another.

Over the last three weeks, AU Now has spilled the beans on what makes those coffee shops special.

Last but not least: the Dav

SIS professor Shawn Bates, SIS/BA '91, MA '04-one of the Davenport Coffee Lounge's most loyal faculty supporters-is a proud member of its mug club.

For an annual fee of $250, he has access to drip coffee anytime he wants and 20 percent off all other house-made drinks-something he takes advantage of twice a day, four days a week. (The mug club is currently sold out for the year).

"There's a cadre of us," said Bates, who often holds office hours in the Dav. "We're the diehards. There's a couple of us who have the complete set [of mugs]."

Named for AU political science professor Frederick Davenport, the Dav began with a single coffee pot in the East Quad Building in 1981. Located in the former Davenport Chapel, which served the entire AU community, the lounge boasted a table fashioned from a marble altar and a world map from before the Soviet Union fell.

When SIS moved to its new digs in 2009, the Dav-and all its historic relics-came along.

Today, the lounge's 45 federal work-study students serve an average of 650 customers each day. Last year, the Dav sold more than 30,000 iced chai lattes, alone.

AU's oldest coffee shop regularly boasts a line that stretches into the SIS lobby-but that's part of the Dav's charm, said Bates, who has taught at AU since 2006.

"The lines have always been a feature of the Dav, but the lines are where you meet people and talk," he said. "You see people you don't necessarily always see because we are siloed into classrooms or in offices all over campus."

Dav manager Julia Ford, SOC-CAS/BA '21, started going to the lounge as a student. "I always felt welcome," said Ford, who favors the Dav's lavender latte. "I got to the point where they knew my order; [it] felt really nice having that connection."

Ford moved to the other side of the bar as a barista during her junior year. As a first-generation college student, Ford said that the connections she made with other employees helped her navigate the costs associated with college.

And when she graduated with a degree in journalism and theater, she stayed on as the full-time manager after the previous one finished their graduate studies.

"[The Dav] was definitely a lifeline for me when I was an undergrad, so now to be able to provide that to my staff is something really important to me," Ford said.

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