Bucks to add new location

By this spring, caffeine-cravers on the west side of campus may find their espressos a little closer to home. Bucks County Coffee will be reopening on 40th and Locust streets on the ground floor of the new Dental School facility, hopefully by this February or March, Bucks President Rodger Owen said. Bucks closed its store at 40th and Locust streets in 1998 soon after the University announced that Sundance Cinemas would be moving to the Hamilton Village complex. The company currently has a shop at 3430 Sansom Street that will remain open. The new coffee bar will be Bucks' largest coffee shop ever, covering 2,700 square feet and stretching 40 feet along Locust Street. Plans for its relocation to the corner of 40th and Locust streets were announced last winter. "We [the University and Bucks] have been partners in the whole thing," said Owen, who said he wasn't upset to lose the store's previous incarnation in the area. He said he expected Sundance to help draw customers to his establishment. While University and Bucks officials hope the store will be ready by spring, the opening date will ultimately depend on the construction progress of the new Dental School building that it will occupy. College junior Elizabeth Gesas said she believes the new Bucks will be attractive to upperclassmen on the west side of campus. "I think it will create an outlet for people to stay by their houses off campus... if [they] are at home and want to get coffee," Gesas said. "There's no place to get coffee in the morning now so I think that's fabulous," said College junior Tiffany Williams, adding that the service and prices at Bucks are better than at Xando. The new Bucks, expected to seat over 100 people, will be open from 7 a.m. to around midnight on weekdays. The menu will extend beyond its regular coffee house products to include Breyer's ice cream, bagels and cookies made daily and a sandwich menu that will feature wraps and soups. According to Owen, the price structure will be the same as that of the Sansom Street store. Coffee will be priced from $1 to $3, bagels will cost between $.60 and $1.50 and sandwiches will sell for about $5.95. Done by the architectural firm that designed Xando, Bucks will feature a cyber area, television sets, a lodge space equipped with couches and a fireplace and outdoor seating. Owen said he is hoping to work with WXPN to develop a music format for the coffee bar's live entertainment.

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