By Mathew Shaw/se news editor
Regular visitors to the SE Campus Bistro will soon have to call it something else when the TCC Beautification Committee decides on a new name after its next meeting March 20.
Student suggestions for the new name have already been submitted. SE president Bill Coppola will have final approval over the new name once the TCC Beautification Committee votes on it.
After this process, the new name will become official at the beginning of the fall semester, according to SE student development associate Amy Staley.
“The reason they wanted to rename it was because many students were not sure what bistro meant,” said Fahd Aziz, SE Student Government Association president. “Simple as that.”
SE student Rashaad Penson expressed cynicism at this reasoning. He pointed out a poster right outside the entrance that made “Bistro” into an acronym, which he believed explained its meaning: “Be Interactive Sociable Talkative Relaxed Outgoing.”
“If they can’t see it, they’re blind!” he said.
Some students have invented their own vocabulary terms for the Bistro and its inhabitants.
“Bistro’s perfect because we have a name for other people in the Bistro: bistronite,” SE student Michael Mosley said.
He further explained “bistronite” was a sort of clique term he and his friends used to describe “bistro dwellers.” He said he tries to avoid the Bistro.
“We use it as a verb, ‘Are we bistro-ing later?’” SE student Omar Neil Francis added.
Much of the controversy over the Bistro name comes from an issue over semantics.
Merriam-Webster online defines bistro as “a small restaurant or bar.” Technically, students only eat at the SE Bistro. They cannot actually buy food there. If students wanted to buy food to eat there, they would have to do it from the adjacent Subway or get something off campus.
For SE student Trey Roach, the word “bistro” has taken on its own special meaning for himself and his peers.
“The Bistro itself has become its own entity,” he said. “Now the Bistro is where we come to chill. That’s what bistro means to us.”
