Tuesday morning debut set for The Daily Grind Coffee Shop and Bistro

Tom Keegan
Onwardtrojns.com

The sight of a student rushing into school gripping a $4.75 cup of cold brew coffee won’t be nearly as common anymore at Chesterton High school now that The Daily Grind Coffee Shop and Bistro is opening for business Tuesday, April 1 at 7:30 a.m.
The cost for a cup: $2. It will close for an hour, from 10 a.m. to 11 a.m., re-open and not close until 1:30 p.m., every school day.
Smart snacks are on the menu as well for the project that has been in the works since before COVID-19 first shut down the world and then, seemingly forever, slowed it down.
“It’s been in the works since before COVID, but then when COVID hit I couldn’t do anything, said Tammy Watkins, the Duneland School Corporation’s director of child nutrition. “Then after COVID, we went through all those renovation projects, so I couldn’t do anything because every school that was being renovated used that side to cook. So, we’ve wanted it for a long time, it’s just that everything kept getting pushed back, so this year we finally were able to start working on that, but that also became a big storage area of all the renovation equipment we had.”
That, Watkins said, amounted to another “long, drawn-out process,” because of all the federal regulations that must be followed to get rid of equipment.
And then there was Hurricane Helene drenching supply chains and delaying the delivery of tables for the bistro.
All that’s in the rear-view mirror now and one student will make history Tuesday morning by becoming the first to buy a cup of cold brew coffee at The Daily Grind Coffee Shop and Bistro, which although separated by a wall to the food lines for breakfast and lunch has a much more modern, stylish feel to it.
The plan calls for a special flavor each day in addition to the standards. For now, mocha will be offered Monday, caramel Tuesday, mocha-caramel Wednesday, vanilla Thursday, strawberry vanilla Friday.
“They’re sugar-free,” Watkins said. “They’re all Splenda-related syrups. And then we’ll have Splenda packets and things like that for kids to sweeten their coffee and creamers to go with their coffee.”
Everything sold there must comply to federal regulations.
“We have to meet these calorie levels, sugar levels, all of that, for us to be able to actually sell something to a child,” Watkins said. “So, all of the items that we’ll sell out of there meet those smart-snack guidelines.”
That, however, does not mean they aren’t tasty, Watkins said.
“We’ll do things like whole grain donuts; they’re really good,” Watkins said. “We’ll sell things like that at morning time, and at lunch time we’ll sell more wraps and salads, things like that. We have whole grain muffins. We even have Cinnamon Toast Crunch muffins and Trix muffins. A lot of those manufacturers actually went to their drawing boards when we got all of our regulations that came down the pike and reformulated their stuff so that it would meet school meal regulations.”
As many people as there are chairs in the bistro will be allowed in at one time for those who prefer to sip and eat inside. Fancy chairs at a coffee bar that look out on the cafeteria are one option and there are several tables as well.
“Anything new tends to do well right off the bat because kids are curious,” Watkins said. “It’ll be sustaining it that’ll be the big test. I think it will because we’re going to be able to charge a lot less than Starbuck’s. Obviously, we won’t be able to do all the junk they put in it because it won’t meet (regulations), but I think when they see the cost difference compared to a Starbucks, and what they can get from us and they can still get their chocolate in it and their caramel in it and all that stuff, it will really take off.”
Based on decades of experience, Watkins predicts the products with chocolate in them will be the best-sellers.
“With the coffee and the snacks it will probably be the chocolate,” Watkins said. “Anything chocolate goes. We have chocolate cookies we already sell. Those go like crazy. We home-bake them. They have some sugar. We’re allowed a certain amount of sugar, and they’re whole grain. That’s what helps us to meet the smart-snack guidelines. Kids buy them like crazy.”