Hungry students craving a healthy, affordable meal or cup of coffee from Food For Thought Café will be disappointed this week.
Instead of espresso, baked goods and sandwiches, students will be met with locked doors and a sign turning them away.
On Wednesday, Sept. 19, employees arrived to pools of standing water throughout the café, as well as damaged, partly collapsing ceiling tiles. Sewage overflow from a drain located below the first floor caused flooding in the café, an office next door and in the sub-basement KPSU space.
The presence of black water led the university to change the locks at the café for student safety and block access to the space until the first week of October.
“Fall term is when we make a large proportion of our money,” said Dana Corey, a Food For Thought employee. “The first two weeks are some of the busiest weeks we have.”
Instead, that time will be spent cleaning and rebuilding the damaged space. The university has outsourced the cleaning and decontamination of the space.
There were initial fears of asbestos contamination, but air testing indicated no presence of the toxic material.
Furniture, ceiling tiles and office materials have all been damaged and will need to be replaced. The flooding permeated the offices of KPSU one floor below, as well as the offices of the Green Space, a student run workspace next to the café that houses student groups like the Environmental Club and the International Socialist Organization.
Damage at KPSU was limited to the floor of the office. The university has deemed the space safe, but Station Manager Jay Turk has concerns for safety. “We’ve told our DJs: don’t eat or drink—just get in, do your show, get out,” Turk said.
Green Space will have to replace everything that was touched by the black water, but Kirk Rea of the Environmental Club seemed more concerned about the losses and damage facing Food For Thought.
An issue the employees of Food For Thought now face is loss of income. Insurance will replace the material goods damaged by the flood, but student employees are still waiting to find out whether their lost wages are covered in the insurance plan.
The university outsourced the cleaning and decontamination of the space to NCM, a nationally licensed and bonded demolition and remediation service company. Repair costs are estimated to be about $75,000.
Food For Thought employees are meeting to consider events such as a kick-off party for their reopening, which can be tracked online via their Facebook page.
A date has not been set for the reopening, but the café is hoping to be back in operation by mid-October.