With mid-terms approaching students before spring break, the need to brave exhaustion and keep up with assignments is at a premium this week.

Although courage does not come in a pill, it can come in the form of a coffee bean.

Unfortunately, Java Beanery and Bakery, the coffee shop in the Martin Luther King Jr. University Union, closes before most students open their books.

“They close at too early of an hour,” Brandon Rowatt, a freshman industrial technology major, said. “It seems like they are in this for the teachers and not the students.”

Shae Johnson, a senior sociology major, agreed with Rowatt.

“For most people, they study at night, not during the middle of the day,” she said. “And they need coffee late at night to stay up.”

Java Beanery & Bakery is open from from 7:30 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday to Thursday and from 7:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Friday.

“You drink coffee either to wake you up or keep you up,” Johnson said. “It’s not like people at noon are like, ‘Hey, let’s drink coffee!'”

Meg Wiliams, a sophomore art major, suggested a possible operating hours change.

“I think they need to be open in the mornings and at nights and closed during the day,” she said.

The student time discrepancies could be one of the reasons why Keith Bliss, the current lease-holder and manager of Java B&B, exercised his 90-day exit clause from his annual contract last week.

Management of Java B&B will switch from Bliss, also the owner of Jitters and Bliss located on 424 W. Lincoln Ave., to the university in mid-May.

Students also cited the inability to use Dining Dollars as a reason for not providing more business.

“It’s a lot easier to have Mom and Dad paying for it rather than out of your own pocket,” said Katie Fischer, a sophomore marketing major, and Java B&B employee.

“Right now I go (to Java B&B) about once a week because I’m only on the north campus two or three times a week,” Marla Thompson, a senior speech communications major, said. “But if we could use Dining Dollars, I would probably go more often.”

The ratio of students using money, as opposed to Dining Dollars, is greatly unequal, said Johnson, who works at the Subway in the food court.

“It has got to be so hard on (Java B&B),” Johnson said, “because we only get one out of maybe every 100 or 150 people that use cash (at Subway).”

Fischer said she thought the ability to use Dining Dollars would increase business.

“I think there would be a great increase because we get comments from customers complaining they can’t use their Panther Cards,” she said.

Kelly Bryan, a freshman undecided major, said Java B&B faces stiffer competition than the student body in the other companies in the union.

“Their biggest competition is the coffee machine in the food court,” she said. “Would you rather buy a cheaper cup of coffee (at the food court) with dining dollars or pay more (at Java B&B) with your own money?

“It’s not fair (to Java B&B) to have coffee machines up here because people will come up to the food court first, not downstairs.”

If it comes down to price, Johnson, who recently moved to Charleston from Salt Lake City where coffee is more prominent, said most students will go for the cheaper alternative.

And that rationale may provide some reason why Bliss chose to opt out of his contract.

“In Utah, people are carrying coffee everywhere. You see students with them in class and teachers have them on their desks,” Johnson said.

She said people don’t care what brand of coffee they drink.