Section
Pepperdine Links
Online Publications
Students will be able to enjoy freshly-made smoothies in the Sandbar as early as the beginning of the spring semester.
Dining Services hopes to introduce a Freshens smoothie service station where the Islandz coffee bar is currently located. The first planning and construction meeting was held Monday.
“I’m excited about bringing Freshens to the Sandbar,” said Mark Davis, dean of students. “I know students will enjoy the extended hours, healthy menu items, and the lively atmosphere that will be created by more people hanging out in this great facility.”
The Atlanta-based Freshens specializes in frozen items such as ice cream and frozen yogurt, as well as blended smoothies. The company already has locations in malls and airports, as well as more than 400 college campuses, including Florida State University, Vanderbilt University and New York University.
“It is a combination of what you would get at Jamba Juice with another dimension to it,” said Gene Perkins, area general manager for Dining Services. “It has an ice cream dimension to it, which I like very, very much.”
Freshens menu includes coffee, milkshakes and fresh-fruit smoothies.
Bringing Freshens to Pepperdine’s campus would also entail some remodeling of the Islandz Sandbar location.
“It’s not a big remodel for the whole room,” Perkins said. “Just our little food service area, to accommodate what we’re going to have for Freshens.”
Perkins said the project should be relatively inexpensive to construct. Freshens has a relationship with Sodexho, which provides dining services to the university, and this makes it possible to bring the company to campus without the university having to pay franchising fees.
University officials say they hope that the minor refurbishment would bring major change to the Sandbar.
“We think that Islandz is an area that’s underused,” said Jim Brock, director of housing. “We think that the Sandbar, when it was redone, was a great addition to Tyler Campus Center and to our community, but Islandz wasn’t something that really got people’s attention.”
Brock said the goal now is to make the area more popular while offering additional on-campus dining options to students. He said ideally the Freshens station would operate from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m., so there would be meal time offerings such as sandwiches and salads.
“I’ve been excited about doing this for a long time,” Perkins said. “We’ve passed through all that red tape. We have the money appropriated for the equipment, that’s not a problem now. It’s just a question of getting it done.”
Additionally, the project has to get clearance from the governing board of the California Health Department. Dining Services will also have to send employees to Atlanta for Freshens training before the location could begin serving customers.
All of the involved parties anticipate being able to open the new location before the end of the academic year and possibly as early as the start of next semester.
“It’s our goal to have it installed by the beginning of the spring semester,” Brock said.
Unfortunately for Brock and company, ambitious construction goals are common on Pepperdine’s campus.
“The problem is that there is so much construction going on on this campus, that we literally have to wait our turn,” Perkins said. “Our turn is coming.”
Perkins said the construction itself could be completed in less than a month’s time, but ordering equipment necessitates careful consideration. Equipment cannot be ordered until precise dates for construction have been decided. But Perkins remains optimistic that their schedule can be kept.
“My honest feeling is that we will open the first day of the second semester.”
Submitted 10-05-2006
MALIBU, CA
