FAS Closes Barker Center Cafe, Citing Financial Strain

The Faculty of Arts and Sciences closed the Barker Center Cafe and laid off its 20 student employees and manager at the end of service on Wednesday, citing budget concerns.

FAS Campus Operations Chief Zak M. Gingo ’98 wrote in an email Wednesday afternoon that the FAS is “in a position where we need to focus funding on academic programs and services” as Harvard fights to recover $2.2 billion in frozen federal funding.

The decision comes days after FAS Dean Hopi E. Hoekstra announced a pause on “non-essential capital projects and spending” and an extension of the FAS’ hiring freeze through the summer. Hoesktra wrote in an email to faculty last week that the cuts were “immediate interventions to build additional financial capacity.”

Twelve of the 20 currently employed students at Barker Cafe are expected to graduate in May. According to Harvard University Dining Services spokesperson Crista Martin, returning student employees will have first right of refusal for shifts at the Lamont Library Cafe and Cafe Gato Rojo.

The sole non-student employee, who serves as an associate of UNITE HERE Local 26 — the union representing Harvard dining hall workers — will be re-employed within HUDS.

The student workers at Barker Cafe are unionized under the Harvard Undergraduate Workers Union-United Auto Workers, a fledgling union of roughly 400 students working in non-academic campus jobs. The union has been negotiating for an initial contract since March 2024.

The announcement comes exactly one year after Harvard closed the Cambridge Queen’s Head Pub and laid off its student employees. While the space was reopened as an event venue, it now employs only non-union workers.

That decision evoked outrage from HUWU-UAW organizers and employees. Student workers circulated a petition against the closure which amassed more than 1,600 signatures.

Gingo added in his email that the University has been in contact with the undergraduate workers’ union over the decision and has “offered to engage in order to support the needs of any returning student worker who may be impacted by this closure decision.” The union has been pushing for stronger job security protections since the Queen’s Head layoffs.

“We are grateful to HUDS for working with the small number of student employees from Barker who will return to campus next year to match them with employment in one of the other campus cafes,” Gingo wrote.

Barker Cafe, which serves Harvard affiliates on weekdays between 9 a.m. and 2 p.m., is located in the building that houses Harvard’s humanities departments. It first reopened in fall 2023 after closing during the Covid-19 pandemic.

—Staff writer Hugo C. Chiasson can be reached at hugo.chiasson@thecrimson.com. Follow him on X @HugoChiassonn.

—Staff writer Amann S. Mahajan can be reached at amann.mahajan@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X @amannmahajan.