Drip(s) through the decades

By Sophie Garlick     9/25/24 12:01am

The year is 1958; the time period, B.C. — Before Coffee. Long ahead of us are the days where caffeine becomes a language unto itself and your intake status equates your current mood. 

Greg Marshall ’86, researched Rice’s history to learn about what coffee was available before the construction of the student center. 

“Before the [Rice Memorial Center] was built, the unofficial student center was across Main Street at Palmer Episcopal Church — before my time, but I suspect [it had] just regular and decaf options,” Marshall said. 

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Coffee shops as we know them today were few and far between, with residential colleges responsible for distributing caffeine. Located in Hanszen College’s attic in the 1960s, ‘A Corner For Dreaming Monkeys’ was the first coffee shop on campus — six decades and several locations later, current students now know it as Rice Coffeehouse. 

“I think I went up there once just to see it since I lived in Hanszen,” Gene Hinyard ’68 said. “But I don’t recall it being attended or offering coffee or any other beverages. I was probably [too] drunk to go there in the first place.” 

The cafe was subsequently moved to Hanszen’s basement in 1975, and renamed ‘Breadsticks & Pomegranates,’ Hinyard said. Its new home was short-lived — flooding later shut it down, according to a Dec. 3, 2010 issue of the Thresher.

House of Coffee Beans, one of the first nearby establishments where coffee was roasted and made to order, opened in 1973 in Rice Village according to Stan Hanks ’87. 

Molly Wren ’84, however, said its location off-campus dissuaded much of Rice’s student population from visiting. Coffee was still seen as a luxury, and nobody wanted to walk to get it.

“I don’t think most of us would have had the money to spend on coffee … We drank tons of coffee from the coffee kitchens pre-servery days,” Wren said. “And of course [we went to] House of Pies.”  

Since food and beverage items are all purchased individually – meal plans were later introduced in the ’90s, according to a Oct. 2, 1998 issue of the Thresher – the act of buying coffee was a conscious one. Marty Merrit ’84 explained that Tab, a diet soda made by Coca Cola, was the go-to pick-me-up.

Mike Gladu, Marching Owl Band trumpeter from 1973 to 1977, said soda  dominated the caffeine scene in the ’80s. 

“[Caffeine] delivery in the ’80s was Coca-Cola,” Gladu said. “If you needed more caffeine, you drank Mountain Dew, Mello Yello or JOLT Cola. Coffee was a rarity at Rice except for old farts, staff and graduate students.”

Still, if you were to have a disposable $2.50 in your back pocket, it wouldn’t go to waste. 

“The coffee in the colleges would have been big industrial drip coffee makers, probably Duncan Coffee Co. since Rice grad Charles Duncan, who was board chair for many years, owned and ran the company before it was purchased by Coca Cola in 1964,” Marshall said. 

According to Marshall, the House of Pies was the only place students would travel off-campus to purchase coffee. 

“The one on Kirby [was] known as “House of Guys” since it became the after-hours hang out for patrons of a nearby gay club called The Copa when the bar closed in the wee hours,” Marshall said. 

Here, loyalty to the Copa acts as the thread sewing coffee consumption and clientele together. 

“There wasn’t much of grabbing coffee, and, frankly, there weren’t many coffee places. In that era, the village was pretty much a wasteland,” Chris Lahart ’78 said. 

Chaus didn’t open in the Ley Student Center until 1990. Brochstein Pavilion opened in 2008, and  openings of other coffee shops on campus and Rice Village soon followed. Arvind Govinday, a Ph.D. student, said the Chaus has a reputatation among students  as ‘the spot to be.’ 

“[It] seems the most popular as it is by far the most affordable option, and I think it is a nice place to work,” Govinday said. 

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