Cafés at UvA see nine hundred euros worth of cups disappear
In recent weeks, at least two hundred mugs have disappeared from two cafés at the UvA, resulting in damages of more than nine hundred euros. It is suspected that customers are taking the cups with them.
Coffee cups are disappearing on a large scale from the Coffee-star café in building J/K on the Roeterseiland campus and Darras Coffee Roasters in the main building of Science Park. Both businesses suspect that customers are stealing the mugs.
Coffee-star in building J/K
Since opening in October 2023 in building J/K, Coffee-star has lost 714 euros worth of crockery. A mug costs 5.68 euros excluding VAT. Coffee-star owner Jan Willem Keus has to reorder 24 mugs every quarter because they keep disappearing. A total of around 100 mugs would have gone missing.
Coffee-star uses green and orange ceramic coffee cups, which are used to serve drinks if you don’t have your own reusable cup with you. Sometimes, they turn a blind eye: visitors are allowed to take the cup inside the building to their work or study area and return it later. In addition to the ceramic cups, the café also has blue-green plastic cups, but those get returned to the café.
“Because customers like the ceramic cups, they want to keep them for themselves and steal them,” says Katrina Graham, manager of Coffee-star in building J/K. Graham notes that customers sometimes say to each other that they would like to steal the cups, or ask her if they are for sale. Keus, owner of Coffee-Star, says that coffee mugs disappear from all of their public locations, such as libraries and other universities. But he notices that more disappear from the UvA than from other places.
Darras at Science Park
Darras Coffee Roasters at Science Park also offers earthenware mugs if customers don’t have their own. But they have to be returned. Only a few of the hundred earthenware mugs ordered in August remain. These are cream and light blue earthenware mugs from Albert Heijn’s own brand. Darras bought them on sale for two euros per mug. That amounts to two hundred euros in lost mugs within four months.
Seid Abadir, manager of Darras’ location at Science Park, finds his mugs in all corners of Science Park, even in the trash. That is why he believes that his mugs are disappearing due to customer “carelessness.” He also suspects that the mugs are being stolen to take home.
Darras has several locations throughout the Randstad, of which the Science Park branch is the only one at a university or college.
Less attractive alternative
Abadir van Darras has now purchased cups from Ikea that are considerably cheaper, at only 69 cents each. Abadir hopes that these significantly less attractive mugs will not be stolen as quickly. Moreover, it will not matter so much if they do disappear, given their low price tag.
Abadir is sad to replace the mugs: he believes that the less attractive mugs detract from the customer’s coffee experience. According to Graham from Coffee-star, their earthenware cups are an integral part of the Coffee-star concept. The ceramic cups create a ‘homely atmosphere’, says Graham.
The café on Roeterseiland will not follow the example of Science Park and purchase cheaper mugs. Owner Keus says that it does not fit in with the concept of his café.
