Bread Garden Market and Bakery will be taking over the coffee kiosks at the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics, it was announced on Tuesday.
“We’re excited for the opportunity and extremely pleased that the hospital chose us,” Bread Garden Executive Chef Christian Prochaska, told Little Village. “We’re going to bring our coffee and coffee drinks, similar to what we do downtown at the market, and pastries — croissants, cookies, Danishes, muffins, donuts.”
There will also be grab-and-go salads and sandwiches, Prochaska said. He added, “We may have other surprises.”
Everything the kiosks serve will be fresh-baked, with most items being made each morning.
“Our bakery is a complete scratch bakery, we don’t bring in any tubs of batter, dough or things like that,” Prochaska said. “The muffins, bread and other things will be baked at our commissary bakery downtown and then sent out first thing in the morning.”
There will be one exception, though: the cookies.
“We’ll be doing the cookies the same way we do them at [the Bread Garden’s Ped Mall location],” Prochaska explained. “We actually have a cookie oven behind the coffee bar, so we bake throughout the day. We may bake six or eight chocolate chunk cookies at a time, and when there are just two remaining, we’ll throw another six or eight in the oven. So, the cookie you get at four in the afternoon isn’t one that’s been baked for 10 hours.”
For the past 14 years, the UIHC coffee kiosks were run by Java House. In an Aug. 18 Facebook post, Java House founder and owner Tara Cronbaugh announced that Java House’s contract to run the kiosks had not been renewed.
In an email to The Gazette following Cronbaugh’s post, UIHC spokesperson Tom Moore said that vendor arrangements at UIHC are periodically reviewed. “In some cases, they begin a public competitive bid process to determine if a different vendor could offer a more cost-effective solution for our patients, visitors, faculty and staff,” Moore said.
In March, UIHC put out a request for proposals for its coffee kiosks — two in the Roy Carver Pavilion, one in the Pomerantz Family Pavilion and another in the Stead Family Children’s Hospital — and Bread Garden submitted its proposal.
“A total of seven bids were received during a fair and open competitive bid process. The review team unanimously recommended accepting Bread Garden Market bid,” UIHC said in its Wednesday announcement. “One of the important features of the winning bid was the Bread Garden Market’s vision for expanding their service and providing a complete range of menu options for patients, visitors and staff.”
The changeover will happen on Thursday, Nov. 1. Bread Garden is now hiring staff for the kiosks, according to Prochaska. He said they hope the people currently working at the kiosks will apply.
While it is unfortunate that Java House lost the account, in these times of limited funds and budget restraints, I applaud the U of I for bidding this out for a better deal. The Bread Garden is a proven success, and I am positive that they will deliver a superior product!
too bad bread garden coffee sucks so bad
Never been, but I sure hope they bring great coffee, tea & hot chocolate. It’s not all about the bakes but having Great Coffee. So if it your coffee sucks then please work on it.
Tried BG’s coffee and hated it. Been getting my Java every day here for the past 10 years so this is pretty sad. People that work 20 hour shifts want good coffee, not soup. As for the financial aspect. It is no guarantee that BG will have as good of sales as Java. AKA if BG only generates 50% of what Java normally does UIHC will be out of a TON of money. In addition, the big selling point for this is BG’s food which will actually hurt the regular cafeteria sales, costing UIHC even more money. I can’t speak for all of the 10k staff here but most of the people I know are going to bring coffee form home, visit the Starbucks machine, do Kurig, or go to MERF.
I am disappointed so far in the Bread Garden at the UIHC. It would have been wise to choose a place with superior coffee if there was a need to change. My first visit to the kiosk closest to my work area at UIHC I was let down as my mocha was a total dud…didn’t taste like chocolate or coffee. When I asked the barista/cashier about it, she gave me serious attitude all while asking how she could “make it better”. The next try I paid 2.99 for a sad, small, dried out croissaint. This morning, the third and final visit, I picked out a bagel. The sign said 1.19 for assorted bagels. When it rang up to be 3.50, I asked why and the cashier said all bagels are 2.99 plus 50 cents for a little cream cheese container. So expensive! I hope things improve!
I was hoping for the best with Bread Garden at the hospital but have been totally disappointed. As a student at Iowa many years ago, I loved the food at Bread Garden downtown. I now realize that I must be desperate for coffee since I keep going back, hoping something will be better. The lattes have always been bad, literally every single one I have bought. I had one I just had to throw away. The only thing I usually halfway like was the plain hazelnut coffee. It seemed fine the first few times but just the other day I got it and it was so bitter I couldn’t drink it. My co-worker got the same thing and had to “choke it down.” I went back to talk to the staff about it and got an iced coffee instead. That was a mistake. It literally tasted worse then cheap instant coffee and costs WAY too much. It’s almost impressive how bad the coffee is, and the sad thing is the tea isn’t any better. Sorry Bread Garden, I’ve tried to give you time to figure things out and improve but your cofffee is truely pretty awful and the food is not much better. If you plan to continue selling poor tasting coffee, you should at least lower your costs. And the majority of your staff seriously need some customer service training. Please try to step up your game because coffee is an important, and usually enjoyable part of people’s workdays. When coffee from the cafeteria is better then an actual coffee shop, you know there is a serious problem.