Snacks, coffee and healthy choices returned to the Bender Jewish Community Center of Greater Washington last week with the opening of a self-serve café in the Rockville facility’s lobby.
Center patrons had been without a place to buy a handy pick-me-up after a workout in the gym or a strenuous day of camp for eight months since the previous café vendor moved out, Center CEO Joshua Bender said.
Since then, the center considered various models for the café’s next iteration.
The staff decided self-service and kosher was the way to go.
“From coffee and hot chocolate, to prepared salads, yogurt, and chips, members and guests can grab their snack or drink of choice, scan their items, and swipe their credit cards,” Bender wrote on Linked In.
Philadelphia-based Aramark Refreshments is stocking the café with kosher food.As Bender describes it, the café is more than a place to eat. It’s also meaningful.
“We’re not just offering food to people,” Bender said. “This café reflects our values.”
For example, it contributes to the Bender JCC’s mission of being “a convener and cultivator of communities,” he wrote.
“The café is another way we bring individuals together to enrich relationships and develop friendships between and among generations of members,” Bender continued. “It’s another reason to connect and another reason to stay.”
The café is also modeling another value: trust. While the Bender JCC is considering asking volunteers to watch and maintain the café, no one is monitoring it now.
The café runs on the trust system, Bender said. “There’s nothing to stop someone from walking away with something without paying.”
The café at the Bender JCC has no name. That’s a project for the future, Bender said. At the Capital Jewish Museum in the District, which opened in June, they involved staff and museum’s friends and fans in choosing the name of its lobby café.
The idea of narrowing down a list of names through a series of votes came from a board member as a way to generate interest in the museum before its opening, said Maura Scanlon, the museum’s communications specialist.
The café offers grab-and-go snacks: muffins, cookies, popcorn and dried mango, she said. Baked goods come from Sunflower Bakery in Rockville, the Jewish community’s nonprofit that trains young adults and teens with learning differences in pastry arts.
Many of the mooted names never made it past the first round of voting: The Pushy Cart, Purity Foods and Jehovah Java among them. The second round eliminated He-brew, The Garden of Eat-in and The Noshery.
The final four were put up for a public vote: The Nosh Pit, DGS [Darn Good Snacks], The Lobbyist and Jew-brew.
The Nosh Pit was the clear favorite every time, Scanlon said.
And it was quickly branded.
While the baked goods are plentiful, coffee drinkers will have to wait to fill their cups; the Nosh Pit’s coffee equipment will be installed “shortly,” Scanlon said. “The machine will brew individual cups of coffee.”
The branded coffee mugs are standing by. ■
