Getting to know the workers of Crossings Café

During the academic year, Crossings Café, located in the Notre Dame Law School, has more than 500 transactions per day. The café is open from 7:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. and offers its customers delicious breakfast sandwiches, lunch specials, soups, coffee, and a myriad of snacks. With over 14 restaurants and cafés on campus, Crossings may seem like any of the others, but what makes it stand out are the people who keep it going.

Kim Furlong, Lead Associate of Crossings, has worked there for eight years. Stacey Miller, Sales Associate, has been working there for a year. Anyone who has visited Crossings Café—primarily the devoted customers also known as law students—can testify to the top-notch service and delicious food options. To some who may see Crossings as just a café, Kim told the Rover that she sees it as a bright place for people to come get a cheery good morning. She said she tries to get all her customers through the rough days because it is difficult to be in school all day long. Stacey told the Rover that she enjoys coming to work every day because of the students who come through and the students with whom she works. For Stacey, coming to work with a good mood automatically helps others who are having a rough day find some happiness and perhaps even change their attitudes.

For Stacey and Kim, running Crossings Café means more than just making food for people; it involves a lifestyle and work ethic. Kim explained, “It has a lot to do with self-respect and having pride in what you are doing. This store to me is a reflection of who I am. I want it to look good, I want it to look enticing, I want you to want to eat the sandwiches—and I think everybody else, since it is my attitude for the store, who works for me needs to also have this same mentality and attitude.”

Stacey told the Rover, “I want Crossings to be a place that everyone wants to come to. If it is neat and clean and the sandwiches look appealing and well-made, and we are friendly and outgoing, people will want to converse with us and tell us how they are doing. I take pride in making sure everything looks like how it should. This is done by taking care of the small details in order to provide customers with a nice, clean environment.”

Crossings Café not only provides their customers with unique and delicious meals, but it also provides about 12 to 15 undergraduate students with campus employment. Stacey noted that although a café job may not be the most glamorous student job, it forces students to have a greater self-responsibility with their time management skills and teaches them to learn how to serve all sorts of people. Kim and Stacey described how they enjoy when they can help to make their student workers’ days better as well.

Stacey told the Rover, “Sometimes when the students come in they are stressed or worried about this test or that assignment, they start working and by the time they leave the café, they are always smiling and learn how to take themselves less seriously and just simply serve others.”

Student worker and junior Sydnee Meyers told the Rover, “I feel like I get treated very well by my managers, and I enjoy the work I do. I enjoy interacting with people on a regular basis and meeting a student body different than what I am used to in the rest of my classes.”

Sydnee continued, “Working in jobs where you do manual labor and direct service with people is a good lesson because not every job has a white collar on it, and not every job is a glamorous thing where you get paid a lot of money per year, but having this experience and having to earn this money with your hands and the work that you do is something that is very valuable. You learn to appreciate the value of how much you work and the value of the work that people who serve you do, it makes you really thankful for the small things that these people do for you.”

Junior and loyal customer Darcy James told the Rover, “It is great to come to a café where not only the atmosphere is nice, but those working are nice and bring another level of joy to your day.”

In addition to playing 1980s and Red Hot Chili Peppers music throughout the day at the café, Crossings workers also strive to represent an ethic of work well-done in order to bring joy to others. Customers who come in for a lunch or snack break will find a neatly kept space, enjoy constantly refilled coffee pots, and discover how “special paninis” are chosen. Every time, they will also find Stacey and Kim greeting them with a smile. For these workers, it is not what is made that is most important; it is how it is made.

Crystal Avila is a senior studying Film and Television. She is a proud worker at Crossings and enjoys working with her good friend Sydnee during the busy lunch hour. If you have panini or music suggestions for the café email her at cavila3@nd.edu.