New Saxbys coffee shop run by Drexel students

Lots of college students work in coffeeshops.

Starting Monday, April 13, college students will actually run the new Saxbys Coffee shop at 65 N. 34th St. on Drexel University's campus. The building is at the point where Lancaster Avenue dead-ends into 34th Street.

Saxbys has partnered with Drexel's Close School of Entrepreneurship, in conjunction with the school's co-op program, which puts students to work for a company full time for six months in lieu of going to class.

One co-op student - Kelsey Goslin - will manage the shop full time, and will be treated the same as any of Saxbys' other store managers, said Saxbys CEO Nick Bayer. About two dozen other students will work part time; three assistant managers also will be students.

Drexel student Meghan Regan managed the project starting last year and helped hire and develop the opening staff.

"This is not play time," he said, adding that he expects the store to be busy, given that 3,000 young people live within two blocks.

Bayer teaches entrepreneurship classes at Drexel, Temple, and his alma mater, Cornell University. What he came to realize is that "this generation, the millennials, is the most entrepreneurial ever," he said. "But they're desperate to do things differently."

This Saxbys has borrowed design cues from the neighborhood. Bayer was invited to the shuttered University City High School, which Drexel is helping to redevelop. He found science lab desks with swivel chairs and paint-spattered art tables and set them up in the new shop. He also hired three students to paint the facing of the front counter.

"We want to give the Drexel community a cafe that is theirs," he said.