The smell of coffee wafts through a door in the design building, inviting passers-by to stop at the Design Caf‚ for a snack or a cup of what Stacy Heuer, a student worker at the caf‚, said her customers call the best coffee on campus.

Likewise, students at the College of Veterinary Medicine stop at the Gentle Doctor Caf‚ between classes or at lunchtime to enjoy food in a large area filled with tables and vending machines.

The Gentle Doctor Caf‚ is open from 7:30 a.m. to 3:15 p.m. The Design Caf‚ is open from 7:30 a.m. until 6:30 p.m.

Both the Design Caf‚ and the Gentle Doctor Caf‚ were built to serve students who spend many hours in the same building and may need a snack during the day, said Design Caf‚ Manager Anna Danneman, graduate student in art and design.

The caf‚s have the same types of food – muffins, cookies, bagels, soup, salads, soft drinks, juice, chips, sandwiches and, of course, coffee. While the sandwiches are made-to-order on site, the baked goods come from the Memorial Union vending services, which owns both caf‚s, Danneman said.

Another draw of the Design Caf‚ is the television set, said Andrew Schmidt, junior in art and design and caf‚ employee. People come into the caf‚ because they hear a movie or music playing, he said.

The caf‚ also fits well in the design building because of the artwork, said Heuer, sophomore in interior design.

“It has an artsy touch to it,” she said.

The caf‚ opened in fall of 1997 in response to growing demand, Danneman said.

“We needed this here for a long time,” she said. “Typically, students like to come [to the Design Building] and stay all day.”

Employees often see the same customers coming back for more, Danneman said.

Heuer and Schmidt, who have worked at the caf‚ for more than a year, both said they enjoy seeing the regular customers, including many of their friends who spend long days in the design building and drop by for a snack.

“A large part of the business is repeat business,” Danneman said.

While the Design Caf‚ usually is visited by design students, it also gets a fair amount of business from students who walk over from the Town Engineering Building, Coover Hall and the Armory, she said. As a rough estimate, caf‚ employees serve several hundred customers a day, Danneman said.

The Gentle Doctor Caf‚ serves mostly veterinary medicine students and faculty, said Theresa Gibson, a caf‚ employee.

Gibson, who works 35 to 40 hours a week, said she gets to know some of the customers fairly well, especially the seniors who have been regulars at the Gentle Doctor Caf‚ since it opened in 1998.

Business has been “pretty steady throughout the years,” she said. The only time the caf‚s don’t serve as many customers is during vacation times, when they have reduced hours, Gibson said.

The Gentle Doctor Caf‚ already reduced its hours since it originally opened because most students are done with classes by 3 p.m., Gibson said.