The Bean Basket’s reopening presents an opportunity for improvement after pandemic forced its closure
By Grace McGuire, November 19, 2021
The Bean Basket sits in the back corner of the ASUW+ hallway in office 131K. (Photo: Grace McGuire)
Tucked away in the back corner of the ASUW+ hall in the HUB, the Bean Basket is slowly making a comeback after being closed since the beginning of the pandemic.
The Bean Basket is a small, student-run shop with the goal of providing students with sustainable, organic food at a subsidized price.
In March of 2020, the Bean Basket, along with many other organizations on campus, was forced to shut down operations. As a result the leadership of these organizations was compromised leaving them with a clean slate for change and promotion.
As students graduated and new students arrived, visibility for the Bean Basket was dwindling as fewer and fewer students who attended the UW before the pandemic were still attending the school.
One of these new students is sophomore, Haasini Bai, the current Bean Basket manager. Bai is the first manager to be hired since the pandemic forced closure upon the Bean Basket to close.
For Bai, the reopening of the shop has not been devoid of challenges. She was left with little guidance from her predecessor due to how abruptly the campus shut down as well as the structural change of the Bean Basket separating from the Student Food Co-op.
“The previous email is not working,” Bai said. “So we requested another email. All these requesting things must pass through different officials and technical persons which took a lot of time, at least a month to get there.”
Despite encountering multiple roadblocks, the Bean Basket officially reopened to the UW students and staff two weeks ago. They were open Monday through Thursday from 11a.m. to 3p.m.
According to Bai, this was a bit of a trial run for the shop with the intention of getting the word out that the Bean Basket is open before a full opening in winter quarter. They are hoping to add Fridays from 11a.m. to 3p.m. to their existing schedule.
The hours of the Bean Basket posted in the main room of the HUB. (Photo: Grace McGuire)
Bai did not reopen the Bean Basket entirely on her own. Senior, Emerson Judd, was hired as the Bean Basket cashier in October and has since helped out with much more than ringing customers up.
Judd was the only one in the duo that had been a customer of the Bean Basket in the past, bringing some past experience to her role.
“It was mostly making orders and like picking up the shipments and putting them in all these containers,” Judd said.
Plastic containers contain dried beans, grains, fruit, and vegetables for customers to purchase. (Photo: Grace McGuire)
“I'm there to obviously serve customers, but also, I do a lot of things like making the signs and refilling stuff,” Judd said. “I'm sort of the very practical, hands-on aspect of the store.”
According to Judd, her role at the Bean Basket extends beyond the opportunity to have a paying job. She is studying English and environmental science and the job has enriched her passion for food systems.
“With food systems, I've really found it to be the intersection of all of these different issues like, environmental issues, and also community and social justice,” Judd said. “It's been a really good way to not only learn more about those things, but also do something really tangible with it.”
Judd is not alone in this interest. The mission of the Bean Basket throughout the years has been to be intentional about where food is being sourced from.
“A lot of this stuff is local. We have a wholesale supplier in Oregon who has all these local or ethically sourced foods and so it was cool to see firsthand where everything was coming from,” Judd said.
Sophomore, Mitchell Klein mentioned the importance that the Bean Basket places on transparency regarding where the food is sourced from after his first visit at the Bean Basket.
“There was this map that had labels,” Klein said. “ It was like showing where every food item they had was coming from. These came from San Francisco.”
According to Klein, he came to the Bean Basket because he wanted a quick snack for work and the items that are sold there are significantly less expensive than other locations on campus to buy food.
“It's like 12 bucks for hazelnuts at the district market,” Klein said, later mentioning he paid $1.14 for a bag of walnuts at the Bean Basket.
Affordable food is not the only goal of the Bean Basket. According to Bai, many students have been requesting that roti be stocked in the shop due to the lack in the Seattle-area.
“I have seen people going all the way to Bellevue to get the roti,” Bai said.
Looking forward, the Bean Basket has goals of increasing marketing efforts beyond hanging posters around campus and to continue to meet the requests of students at UW.