Let’s get the obvious joke out of the way: The Buzz serves beer and wine now, so feel free to annoy your friends and fellow students when you “cleverly” announce where you’re going for a drink. Got it out of your system? Good.

As of Monday, spirits found a permanent home on the menu of the central campus cafe from 4-9 p.m. on weeknights. Available to drinking-age students are a selection of four local brews, red and white wines from across the Northwest region and a gluten-free hard cider from Salem, all priced at $3 each.
“In a nutshell it’s just adding one more item to the drink menu, like anyone would do if they could,” EMU Food Service Coordinator Shelly Pruitt said. “I got presented with the question of how to drive students into the restaurant during evening hours and thought, ‘Well, if you want to keep students around, why not serve wine and beer?’”
Creating a daily pub night for the campus coffee shop has been a three-year process. Starting in December 2010, the Buzz began implementing pub nights first on a monthly basis, then starting once a week. After years spent on employee training and procuring the necessary permits, The Buzz’s request for a daily pub night was approved Dec. 1, 2013.
“The big thing was about risk management,” Pruitt said of the process. “We wanted to make sure we presented (alcohol) in the light of moderation. This isn’t another Taylor’s.”
In order to keep alcohol consumption at campus-safe levels, customers are restricted to three drinks per day and are required to return their previous bottle or wine glass in order to purchase a refill. What’s more, all alcoholic beverages must be consumed within the interior boundaries of the cafe.
Eventually, Pruitt hopes the additional menu items will draw even more students to the campus hub.
“It’s been a long process, but it’s working now and we are hoping that it’s going to be a big success,” she said. “Hopefully (The Buzz) becomes the student bar where they can kind of drive the atmosphere and what goes on within our limits.”