Beam Me Up Bagels, you don’t beam me up. In the middle of winter, all that satisfies the student soul is bread and circuses. Right now, students don’t have many circuses and to make matters worse, there is scant bread.
The circus that would follow the opening of studentville’s very own bakery has the potential to kill two birds with one stone. In efforts to carve out a pathway for this bakery to come into existence we must first think about what we had, what we have, and what we can do.
Simply for the fact that students need and want cheap, hearty meals to keep them healthy between bouts of sickness and assignments.
To some degree, we already have this in the form of OUSA’s $4 lunches, but these have their limitations. Despite the often-extensive lines to $4 lunch, I would wager that there are still hundreds more students eating chicken noodles or the cheap Sunny Days pies from the Campus Shop.
While university cafes also help pick up some of the slack, there is a significant shortage of food items in and around campus which fall into the cheap-medium price range. Particularly as the winter gets colder and students get hungrier, there is much need for something like a bakery to warm hearts and build a bit of community when people are isolated and times are desperate.
On the flip side of this, there is enough of a market to make a sizable amount of revenue, although costs would be a concern. If Musselburgh can have two bakeries, each within metres of the other, surely studentville can have a crack at it?
Though my knowledge on old studentville haunts is scant, there is something to be learned from the case of Governers when discussing this issue, now one of the many hip cafes which litter the upper George St area.
For those who don’t know, Governers was opened in the late ’70s by a duo of quasi-students Paul Gourlie (the governer) and Andrew Deans. With no money and a mere hunch that a student-run cafe would flourish, the pair set about crafting a cultural icon which became synonymous with the student culture of the time.
Gourlie went on to win two OUSA presidential elections in an era when the role was heavily contested, all the while assisting with the running of the cafe as front of house.
Deans managed the operational side of the business, and together they created something magical. It is this kind of "it’ll all work out" mentality which epitomises the student life.
This kind of mentality still exists, but you would need a hell of a lot of it if you were going to "she’ll be right" your way into starting a bakery.
While the ’70’s was an entirely different economic climate, it is worth thinking about the possibilities there are when two students come together to create something special in the Dunedin community. Maybe the next Governers won’t be a student-led venture like it once was, but a similar spirit may be crucial for success.
However, if a student were to want to start up something like this, a plea to the OUSA for funds would not go unnoticed by the executive.
In the more likely case that someone were to want to invest and make a pie-producing profit machine, I’m sure students wouldn’t mind either way.
The building which once housed ADJO (at present for lease) may make a good spot, although this has its downsides being so close to New World and relatively removed from campus.
Writing this, I wonder if I really want a bakery in studentville, or some of the old Gourlie-Deans magic that such a venture would naturally require.
I think the latter might be the case if I’m being honest.
• Hugh Askerud is a 20-year-old local and student at the University of Otago, majoring in politics and religious studies.
