The Moonlight Café is located in the Shire next to the recreation room.
Photo by Jeena Gould
Tuesday night marked the grand reopening of the Moonlight Café, where Shire Mods residents were invited to take a break from midterm studies to fellowship over coffee and live music. Residents filtered in and out of the café from 7:30 to 10 p.m. for quality time with their fellow neighbors and an added caffeine boost for the night.
The Moonlight Café will be open once a week, rotating days as different resident advisors are on duty. Each time the café is open there will be some sort of specific event hosted by the particular RA on duty that night.
“The events will simply be opportunities for students to relax from studies or simply hang out, socializing with a “Monday Muffins” or “Tuesday Chai” type scenario,” Shire East RD Cara Jones said.
.A schedule with more specific information will be posted on the café door.
Jones said this is not the first time that this space has been used. She explained that the Moonlight Café started in the 1970s, providing coffee and music to students, but stopped because the past RDs and RAs stopped maintaining it. This space was used for different reasons and in the 70s was later used for the Moonlight Cafe. When this ended it eventually became storage and is now being turned back into the cafe.
Jones collaborated with Shire West RD Adam Higginbotham and the Shire RAs to take advantage of extra space and bring back the café.
“Not only is it a fun idea for an APU living area, it’s an opportunity for people to be excited about living in the Shire,” said senior theology and philosophy double major Lindsey Myers, the RA for I Court.
Residents and RAs alike had positive thoughts about the idea of a café opening in the mods.
Shire F Court RA and RARs, going by the name of “3 Shades of Gray”, entertained the crowd with light hearted music for Moonlight Cafe’s reopening.
Photo by Jeena Gould
“I’m really excited that this is opening because it gives all of us an opportunity to get together over coffee and get to know one another despite having different schedules,” said sophomore computer information systems and theater arts double major Lindsay Burton, a resident of the Shire Mods. “It’s a very good addition to the Shire.”
The Moonlight Café will continue as long as the future RDs and RAs of the Shire maintain it.
“[This space] could easily be used as a room for storage or for junk piling up,” Jones said. “But if the RD and the RAs are intentional about keeping it open, providing menus for people to come in, then hopefully it will be open past this year.”