Luke’s Cafe on the Quad offering Aggie Ice Cream

Students and visitors at Utah State University now have another venue for satisfying their Aggie Blue Mint cravings this semester. 

Luke’s Café on the Quad, located in the Stan L. Albrecht Agricultural Sciences Building on the east side of USU’s Quad, has begun serving Aggie Ice Cream alongside their other menu options. 

Jaime Bradford, USU Associate Director of Retail Operations, said  Luke’s Café is the only café on campus currently serving Aggie Ice Cream. 

According to Bradford, the College of Agriculture and Applied Sciences (CAAS) approached USU Dining Services with the idea of including Aggie Ice Cream at the café. As Aggie Ice Cream falls underneath the umbrella of CAAS, it made sense and was a great fit for the Agricultural Sciences Building, Bradford said.

However, bringing Aggie Ice Cream to the Quad has also brought challenges. According to Bradford, finding space to store products is a challenge that smaller cafés on campus frequently face. 

According to Bradford, recent changes to Luke’s Café also made the venue ideal for storing and selling Ice Cream. “We had to find a place to put a freezer and store the product,” Bradford said. “We just did a small remodel to make the café function smoother and to add extra storage space.”

This is not Aggie Ice Cream’s first time on the Quad. According to USU’s Aggie Ice Cream webpage, Aggie Ice Cream has its roots with the original creamery in the Old Main building in 1888. By 1922, students in the USU dairying department could take classes involving ice cream manufacturing.

The Aggie Ice Cream store was later established in 1932 on the north side of the Quad. The store remained a USU fixture until 1975 when a new ice cream parlor was built onto the Nutrition and Food Sciences building on the east side of campus.

Even with the recent renovations and the return of Aggie Ice Cream to the Quad, Luke’s Café isn’t attracting many ice cream customers yet. According to Bradford, most students don’t seem to be aware that Luke’s Café is serving Aggie Ice Cream yet.  

“The response has been ok.  We sell maybe one or two a day,” Bradford said. “Once people realize it is being served at Luke’s, I think [sales] will pick up some.”

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