Otter Bay Restaurant has High Hopes and Ambitions
Andie Aguirre, Staff Reporter

Imagine a place on campus that combines culture, music, art and great food and also provides a strong community atmosphere for students and faculty.

This is exactly what the Otter Bay Restaurant (OBR) and its staff hopes to provide CSU Monterey Bay students this year and for years to come.

In the past, students have turned to the OBR as a fresh and tasty alternative to the food selections that the Dinning Commons and Otter Express provide. In addition to the menu, the campus restaurant will offer students a fun place to hang out.

The OBR soon hopes to have live music on a weekly basis and student artwork on display to give the restaurant more of a community vibe.

“Right now the OBR is kind of a blank canvas, but we are hoping to create sort of a community hub that can also serve as an outlet for creative expression for students,” said Drea Aguilar, Restaurant Supervisor and CSUMB Alumni. Aguilar, very passionate about her vision, has been a part of the campus community for nearly six years and feels she knows the campus and its students well.

“I just want to give back to this campus by helping it expand creatively by providing a space for students to express who they are”, said Aguilar.

In order to avoid schedule conflicts, Aguilar’s goal is to have OBR events during the school week when other spots like the Black Box Cabaret (BBC) do not have anything planned. This way, she feels, students can always have something to do on campus.

Aguilar believes it is important for students to always have activities available on campus The main goal of OBR staff is to increase traffic into the restaurant because due to its somewhat discrete location, many new students do not know about the campus restaurant. The OBR relies mostly on word of mouth to attract customers.

“We tend to get forgotten about because we’re hidden in the University Center, but we want students to know that we exist and that they do have an alternative on-campus dinning option,” said Joyce Powell, OBR Catering and Restaurant Director

Powell added further that the OBR is in the process of waiting for approval for signage that will be posted out front of the University Center to help make the OBR be more accessible to students.

However, there are those new students that do know about the restaurant and eat there frequently, like Jackie Midland, a Freshman Kinesiology major who said she likes the OBR because “It has a more flexible system of payment because [students] can use either our flex dollars or meal plan. Plus the food is amazing; I love the soups of the day,” she said.

The OBR’s first effort at vamping up its vibe is a pre-party for the Monterey Music Summit (MMS) concert, which takes place Oct. 20-21. The pre-party will be on Thurs. Oct. 18 from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. and will feature plenty of music, food, contests and giveaways all in hopes of getting students hyped for the MMS.

Student musicians and artists interested in performing live or having their work on display at the OBR are urged to contact Drea Aguilar on first class at Andrea_Aguilar@csumb.edu, or by calling the OBR at 582-5020, just dropping in anytime during the week works too.

Mon-Thurs: 11:00 a.m.-8:00 p.m.

Fri: 11:00 a.m. -6:00 p.m.

Sat-Sun: Closed