All you have to know about Front Room

Before this blog starts, i figure there is a need to introduce a little bit about this place, for those who have never heard of it, or those who maybe know.

Front Room is a Starbucks coffee house in the fourth floor of Backer. Locating at the front of Baker Center, it gets its name Front Room due to its advantageous location. It is a sweet place to have some time out of study, yet not as wild and unbridled as places like bars.



Walking into Front Room, your eyes will first be directed to the coffee section, and then a small stage on the other side. With basic lighting facilities, this stage serves as a cozy place for medium concert. At the back of the stage, an artificial fireplace is available. This fireplace, i heard, is not working, but built to imitate the real fireplace in Old Frontier Room.


The old "Front Room" is in old baker, and the name is not "Front Room," but "Frontier Room," because it used to serve as the Frontier of the campus, according to the archive person in Alden Library. However, its function is also a snack bar where students went to relax and have their favourite drinks, but not for the alcohol, since there was an Ohio Room where students went to sip alcohol. In the first two years of its operation, Frontier Room was way too small, and Janice Bixler, the director of Baker center at that time, wrote to the president to recommend that it is "much too small for the present enrollment of students, and of course will be more and more inadequate as the enrollment increases." The next year, the snack bar area of Frontier Room was enlarged, and a Jukebox was added to it.

It is interesting and touching to see the comparison between the old Frontier Room and the new Front Room.



This is a story on Post about Frontier Room started all-night open practice, which was a big thing at that time.



This is what the usual scenes in Frontier Room were like. Students were as casual as we are now, and customers always went to and fro in constant streams.



This picture was really AWESOME. I like the Frontier Room logo, as well as the "model" who posed so well for Frontier Room branding.




This illustration extracted the best of Frontier Room as well as Front Room - it is a place swarmed with warmth.

Front Room enjoys favors not only from the students, but also people who work there. I should thank Andrea Timm, who worked there since fall 2008, (the same time i started my journey at OU) for accepting my interview, and from her i get to know so much about Front Room. Same with me, she really liked this place, especially the environment - artworks hanging on the wall, music playing all the time, and the aroma of coffee soaking the room. It feels really comfortable to work, study or hang out there.



Talking of the artworks on the wall, I have to mention that those artworks in Front Room are from Passion Workshop, a vocational workshop for adults with mental and physical challenges.


Andrea told me that there has been lots of fun stuff happened in Front Room. Many student organizations host parties there, such as super bowl parties, St. Patrick's Day parties, and even 'beach' parties. Every Friday night, there is open mic night in which anyone can perform for the coffee shop, followed by "laughter after dark", which according to her, is a group of students come and improvise for the coffee shop.

Andrea said it is really nice about this place except for a minor not-so-satisfactory policy. The left-over food of the day cannot be given to those who need them but thrown away. As a student worker for west 82 myself, I totally understand her concern. The food policy in dining hall is really hard for me to understand. Even though i was not growing up in an family that basic food supply was problematic, i feel that throwing away those food is huge waste. Why cannot they be given to the people living in homeless shelters in Athens. Sometimes, i think it is really great idea that activities like walks and charity sale are collecting money and food for those local poor. However, when it comes to food in dining hall, the policy is so rigid that what could have be done becomes far away. Besides, Andrea thinks it is not reasonable that Front Room does not have glass recycling since other recycling, such as paper, cans etc. are available.