Firestone Library Pilots Café: The "Tiger Tea Room"

Patrons of Firestone Library, one of Princeton University’s most popular study spaces, are gently reminded to refrain from eating when they enter the lobby through electric turnstiles:  Library administrators and Campus Dining created an exception for this reminder last week, when they opened a café in the DeLong Reading Room where eating, drinking and conversation is encouraged. The café, the “Tiger Tea Room,” is accompanied by an adjacent “Tiger Den,” a small reading and seating space formerly used as a classroom. Both are open daily from 10 AM to 7 PM. Library administrators reached out to Campus Dining to create the café after receiving requests for such a space from library patrons, according to Barbara Valenza, Library Communications Manager. The project is a partnership in which Campus Dining Services provides all food items, she said. The current menu lists items such as croissants, muffins and other pastries.          The Tiger Tea Room and Tiger Den are both pilot projects that are in a trial run period until June 2017, according to signs distributed via residential college listservs. The library administration will gather feedback during the pilot to help determine the library’s long-term purpose and structure.Feedback posted on designated spaces in the Tiger Tea Room suggests that current student feedback is largely positive. “Great idea!” one sticky note says. “Keep it going!”   Charles Brobbey, a temporary Campus Dining employee, is recording patron visits and purchases to aid the evaluation of the pilot program.  Based on his observations, Brobbey says patrons have come back to the Tiger Tea Room and have also utilized the Tiger Den. The fact that the Tiger Tea Room is the one of the few places in the library where patrons can freely converse may attract visitors, Brobbey said. “People seem to like it a lot,” he added.