Coffee and Community at the Cardinal's Nest Café

For the students, by the students: the management team behind the Cardinal’s Nest Café, found on the second floor of Emmanuel College’s Cardinal Cushing Library, is pushing to make the café a frequent hotspot on campus for Emmanuel students.

The space has been student run and operated for several years now, organized within the School of Business & Management’s Emmanuel Business Collaborative (ECB), but the newly expanded management team is making a concerted effort to raise more awareness, attract more students and build the café up as a community space.

General Manager of the Cardinal’s Nest, Ella Poor ’25, hopes the team’s new structure (which consists of Maya Galindo ’26, Ryan Ragosta ’26 and Caspian Reardon-Fargo ‘26) and their enthusiasm for the café will be enough to elevate its status among Emmanuel students before she graduates next May.

(From left to right): General Manager Ella Poor '25, Operations Manager Ryan Ragosta '26, Finance Manager Caspian Reardon-Fargo '26 and Marketing Manager Maya Galindo '26.

Making a communal space

Galindo, the Cardinal’s Nest marketing manager, said she has always spent time with friends at the café, as it’s a great “third space” on campus.

“It’s really important to have a place like that on campus. It’s so easy to get stuck in the habit of going from the dorm to classes and back,” Galindo said. She added that the Cardinal’s Nest can be that extra hangout space for students that they might need – even if it’s just to spend time with friends and “pretend to do homework.”

Encouraging students to visit and raising awareness is another piece of the puzzle. That’s why Galindo is taking on event planning within her role – so the Cardinal’s Nest team can start to involve other campus groups and clubs to plan some events that will increase foot traffic.

For the first time, the Cardinal’s Nest is hosting an event on October 30th featuring live music from Gianni Ridolfi '25, food and Halloween trivia. More information about the first Cardinal’s Nest event of the year can be found on their Instagram.

Practical business experience

While they're building up a campus space for their fellow students, they're getting paid to operate the business and practice relevant skills in the fields they're studying. Poor, who is a Management major, said the role has been an introduction into the logistics of managing a team and problem solving in a business setting. Another plus, she added, is that each student can apply their own interests that align with their major to the work they’re doing.

In her case, as a Sustainability & Global Justice minor, Poor has done research into what goes into the sustainability of a business and investigated how she can apply it to the Cardinal’s Nest.

The management group discusses an upcoming event at a team meeting.

Running the Cardinal’s Nest is a great opportunity for the students, said Emmanuel’s Director of Experiential Learning and Lecturer of Management Peter Nunziata, since they get to practice the essentials of running a business: managing schedules, ordering product, staying on budget and marketing it.

At the same time, being in an on-campus business under the ECB umbrella allows them the freedom and flexibility to be creative with their work and problem solving, since it’s not as stringent as a typical business would be.

“Because it’s here at Emmanuel, they have a vested interest in it and have a more personal connection to the work. They want to make changes and improve it for the College and their fellow students,” Nunziata said.

Students can visit the Cardinal's Nest between 9 a.m. and 2 p.m. Monday through Thursday.

Skyla Raposo '28, a new barista at the Cardinal's Nest, makes a caramel vanilla latte. "You can get essentially any drink you'd want here - and it's cheaper," Raposo said.

Getting the word out

Ultimately, the Cardinal’s Nest team doesn’t want students to swing by solely when there’s an event – they don’t even want students to restrict their visits to study sessions or group projects.

“We want it to always be lively and welcoming, not just when there are events – even outside of that,” said Ragosta. The management major acts as the café’s operations manager – organizing inventory, keeps track of sales and seeks out the most efficient costs for the business.

For someone who hopes to be a financial advisor, he said finding the lowest prices for products at the Cardinal’s Nest has been great practice. Like his fellow managers, Ragosta sees the potential of what the Cardinal’s Nest has to offer.

“Dunkin’ Donuts is always packed and is always the same experience – this could be more unique and more comfortable – but we have to get the word out,” he said.

Reardon-Fargo, a finance major, agreed. Their hope is to make each visit to the Cardinal’s Nest “a unique experience” which he suggested could involve more decoration of the space that highlights student work, whether it be art or graphic design, for example. The poster currently on display at the Cardinal’s Nest was created by a graphic design student at the College.

“We hope the community recognizes the chance to support the place that’s run by students who want the best for it. [You can] support the coffee shop where the barista working shares a class with you,” Reardon-Fargo said.