By Anastasia Smith
Features Assignment Editor
College students and coffee go together. Whether it be to stay on top of a busy schedule or to squeeze a few more hours into an a late night, students often turn to coffee for that extra push.
At SBU, there’s a variety of locations to get a quick caffeine fix. But what location is the best? Café La Verna is a sweet spot to relax with friends or finish up an assignment. The RC Café offers a variety of guilty-pleasure foods, as well as a nice frappe. Heavenly Grounds has a great location to grab a cup before class. But which offers the best price? Best bonuses? And most importantly, the best flavor?
Café La Verna is located just outside the Hickey, and serves Starbucks products. Starbucks has been a long-standing coffee icon, offering a wide variety of coffee, as well as smoothies and hot cocoas. For a small, plain coffee at La Verna, it costs $2.11. This coffee has a strong taste, even with cream and sugar. This cup is perfect for those who prefer a rich, bold flavor in their morning brew. La Verna also offers preferred customer cards, guaranteeing that after purchasing nine drinks, you can get one 12 ounce beverage free. This gives customers an incentive to come back for more.
Heavenly Grounds is a self-serve coffee stand, just inside of Plassmann. This coffee stand allows customers to choose between three blends of coffee, and help themselves to cream and sugar. For a small coffee, it costs $1.89. Each brew comes with a label describing the flavor. Lakehouse blend is very rounded and smooth. French Roast is more robust and strong. Their blend of decaffeinated coffee is a bit weak, but still smooth. This stand also has eco-friendly cups, which means good for the environment, and good for a caffeine rush.
Lastly, the RC Café does offer hot coffee of various sizes and flavors, such as a cappuccino. They also serve delicious F’Real frappes. F’Real is a company that sells self-serve milkshake machines and the shakes to go with them. F’Real, in recent years, has created frappe and cold brews that can be made in their machine. In the RC, a F’real shake – or in this case frappe – costs $4.09. This is more costly than the others, but it is well worth it for the fan of cold coffee. The frappe has a very sweet and creamy flavor, with just enough of a coffee aroma to not be mistaken for a milkshake. For a perfect warm-weather treat, stop by the Reilly Center and pick up a F’real frappe.
There are a variety of coffee shops on campus, each offering its own take on coffee. Café La Verna offers a variety of flavors for a decent price, with a more robust roast. Heavenly Grounds offers good coffee for little cost, in a great location for the busy student. Lastly, the RC sells a sweet treat for a bit more than typical, but a F’Real frappe is worth it. Good coffee is up to the coffee drinker, so go out and try something new!
smithan18@bonaventure.edu
