The Ballad of Einstein's Bagels

Culture is not passive at the U of C, it's a force.

For years before I came there had been a tradition in the C-Shop - a coffee shop on campus - called Shake Day. Every Wednesday milkshakes were $1. This certainly didn't do wonders for kids trying to avoid the Freshman Fifteen, or the Sophomore Six, or the Junior Jellyroll, or the Senior Spare Tire. But, as I understand from my predecessors, it did do wonders for psychological health on campus.

Then Einstein's Bagels decided to take over the C-Shop. A fine idea, to have bagels on campus (which are hard to find in Chicago, good ones at least) and actual good cofee and such. Except Einstein's doesn't do milkshakes.

So they got rid of shake day. The students protested. "But we're a bagel chain," the Einstein's people said. Didn't make a difference; the students wanted their shake day damn it, they wanted their $1 shake. I wanted it, too, even though I'd never had it, because it was advertised in all the admissions materials.

Einstein's acquiesced - sort of. They started offering tiny shakes in little plastic cups - the kind you see at a water cooler. "Here," they said, "we have reinstituted Shake Day."

"Not good enough," the students said,"these shakes are puny."

"But how are we to make money? We are a business, after all."

"No, you're a campus coffee shop at the University of Chicago. You're on our turf, not live by our rules."

Einstein's protested, but we got our way. And now I'm sure we have the only Einstein's Bagel franchise that serves milk shakes.

Also, we sure as hell don't call it "Einstein's." We call it the C-Shop.