The Bean Café, a new coffee shop on campus, has opened up where the old Café Vaquero used to be, and with it brings more than just the average cup of joe.
With Peet’s Coffee being their flagship item, the Bean Café opened up on May 7 for students to enjoy food, drinks and sometimes enjoy the music provided by the student government or a live pianist, amateur or professional.
Although the main product the Bean Café sells is coffee, one thing is certain of this new curio stand: the Bean Café is more than just a quick caffeine fix.
The café has an atmosphere to itself, complemented by the tables and the attractive red umbrellas, matching the look of the shop. The people on the tables interact with one another, relaxing or chatting, while having a bite to eat or a drink in their hands.
Sometimes the customers can enjoy the music of a very talented pianist nearby, the piano being a courtesy of the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra.
Once at the counter, employees are nothing but happy to help customers get whatever they fancy at the moment.
For the summer heat, coffee won’t be their recommendation: a mango smoothie should do the trick. To make it a full meal, a Caesar salad wrap should fill up the consumer with its lettuce, Swiss cheese, Caesar salad dressing and chicken wrapped into one flour tortilla.
For a snack, a warm chocolate croissant is sweet treat, and as a complement for “Happy Friday,” two cookies on the house.
At first, shrugs were imminent with the realization that the Caesar salad wrap was pre-packaged. Once opened, the wrap exceeds what people would think of the pre-packaged foods. The crunching sound of lettuce along with the slight bitter taste of the Swiss cheese complimented the savory taste of the chicken that come together with Caesar salad dressing to perfectly emulate the salad in a single bite.
Switching from savory to sweet, the mango smoothie is not just a sweet treat, but can also make a warm day feel just right. It uniquely gives the meal the right amount of sweet to mix with the slight dark taste of Swiss.
Letting the croissant cool down a bit, the complementary cookies provide a very sweet pick up in between the meal. It is much sweeter than the mango smoothie, which is to be expected, but the sweetness that the cookies provided were the perfect add in to entirety of the meal.
For dessert: the croissant. The first bite made bread crumbs fly while keeping the chocolate drizzle on top intact. It was semi-sweet. The second bite uncovered the chocolate hidden inside and soon after the discovery, the croissant was gone.
With the meal finished there was still a reason to stick around the café tables. The pianist was continuing on.
Kaoko Okuyama kept on playing the piano, the message on top of the piano saying “Play me, I’m yours.”
The Bean Café: 1500 N Verdugo Road, Glendale
Business hours are Monday through Thursday, 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. and Friday to Saturday, 8 a.m. to 3 p.m..
Credit cards are accepted.
Recommended food options: wraps, all for $5.95, croissants for $2.75.
Recommended drink options: Mango Smoothie (medium) for $4.05
