After years of student requests, the bubble tea giant Chatime will finally open a franchise at UTSC.
Job postings for Chatime UTSC have been found on various employment websites such as Indeed and Catch a Job. The postings say that Chatime is looking for workers to prepare the teas and operate the cash register.
In a phone interview with The Varsity, Desmond Chan, Vice-President Operations of the Scarborough Campus Students’ Union (SCSU), said that Chatime is scheduled to open by early October.
The store will be located in the basement of UTSC’s Student Centre, which currently is only occupied by the student-run pub, Rex’s Den.
According to Chan, Rex’s Den will shift from a full-service model to a half-service model.
“Chatime will take up half of the space,” said Chan. “They’ll be sharing the same area, but we’ll have signage that clearly outlines which part is Chatime’s and which part is Rex’s.”
At the moment, the Student Centre basement is under renovation in preparation for this change.
“I’m so excited, I’m going to go there every other day till I get sick of it,” Mohit Singh, a fourth-year Statistics student, told The Varsity. “It’s about time UTSC got a proper bubble tea place.”
At the moment, UTSC is the only U of T campus without a bubble tea store nearby. The nearest Chatime was a 40 to 50-minute bus ride from UTSC, while the closest bubble tea option, Gong Cha, is 25 minutes away by bus or at least an hour away by foot.
In November 2016, Twitter user @87virtuemoir tweeted to Chatime Canada that it “should really open a Chatime at UTSC,” to which Chatime Canada replied that it “[hopes] this day can come soon.”
Almost two years later, this tweet is about to become a reality.
