Applause, a cafe in The Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center, will close for renovations at the end of the semester to provide healthier and more upscale food options in the performing arts center, a Dining Services official said.
The Clarice and Dining Services are teaming up with the architecture, planning, and preservation school to complete the project. The cafe, located in The Clarice, has always offered an assortment of breakfast, lunch and coffee items, but the renovation will create an upscale dining experience students can’t find anywhere else on the campus, said Joe Mullineaux, the senior associate director of Dining Services.
“Our senior executive chef and our chefs are all working on the menu rotation right now, so … it’ll be something a little different every day,” Mullineaux said.
During construction and remodeling, Applause will only serve lunch, and breakfast and coffee items were moved to Encore, a cafe in The Clarice’s main lobby, on Sept. 20.
The concept for the renovated cafe is based on a California-based restaurant chain called Lemonade, Mullineaux said, and they expect to reopen the cafe the Monday after spring break in 2017.
Instead of having Pepsi products, the cafe will offer carbonated water and different flavors of French and Italian sodas, Mullineaux said. Additionally, the space will serve sandwiches, salads, soups and paninis that are not available at any other Dining Services location.
“We would like to be a destination for people to come from all over the campus to eat because we are going to have a food experience at Applause … that is going to be like no other on [the] campus,” said Erica Bondarev Rapach, the associate executive director of The Clarice.
As part of the transition to making Applause a lunch-only cafe, Encore will now host the morning rush.
“Encore historically was a bar that was only open for certain events that requested to have a bar in the lobby,” said Bart Hipple, Dining Services’ assistant director of communication. “The Clarice has decided that it’s better use of that space to have the coffee station down there, so we’re serving Starbucks out of that area.”
The new hours for Encore are Monday through Friday 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., Hipple said.
Despite its new role as a breakfast cafe, Encore will continue to function as a bar for special events.
“On the evenings we have events here, it is also staying open to be more like a bar, so that part is continuing. … You can get coffee, but there’s also alcohol,” Bondarev Rapach said.
Student involvement is one of the most unique aspects of the project, she said. Graduate students in the architecture, planning, and preservation school will redesign the cafe.
Professor Madlen Simon has designed a class this fall in which students will give their perspectives in the structuring process, Bondarev Rapach said.
“They’re really excited to work on a project that’s not just theoretical because, imagine, these students are actually going to see this cafe come to life and they’re going to be able to say they worked on it when they were students,” she said. “It’s kind of amazing.”
