Campus Dining has introduced a new drink option to Northern Michigan University, Noba, and we, the Editorial Board, do not like it. NMU’s executive chef Derek Estes obtained this option for NMU by introducing a special boba machine to make simple and fast boba without needing much staff to operate it.
With the unrenewed contract with Smoothie King, this feels like a way to replace the drink store on campus with an option that is hitting all of the wrong notes when compared to Smoothie King.
Unlike Smoothie King, there is already a boba store in Marquette, Blossom Bird Bubble Tea, which handmakes its drinks and does a lot for the community. It hosts various events like movie showings, cosplay competitions and much more. This NMU option will be taking from the same customers but at a higher price than what’s served at Blossom Bird. Unlike most campus dining options, this one outprices the competition, but the competition puts in far more work than the NMU option.
Smoothie King had students make the drinks by hand, taught them a little more than touching a few buttons and pulling a few levers, and provided more jobs than what is offered at NMU. It would have been really unique for this new NMU option to teach students to make boba, and it would have provided students more jobs. It could have allowed students who lost their jobs at Smoothie King to reclaim them at another campus dining option.
This new option takes away from local businesses, provides far fewer jobs and is expensive—making it a subpar option and replacement for Smoothie King.
Editor’s Note: The North Wind is committed to offering a free and open public forum of ideas, publishing a wide range of viewpoints to accurately represent the NMU student body. This is an editorial, written by the North Wind Editorial Board in its entirety. It reflects the majority views of the individuals who make up the editorial staff of the North Wind. It is the policy of the Editorial Board not to endorse candidates for any political office, in order to avoid aligning this public forum with particular political organizations.
