ROHO Depot has managed to survive 10 years by adapting to serve the changing needs of the students and school.
Students can purchase frappuccinos from the ROHO Depot during lunch in the student center. Starting Sept. 13, students will be able to buy Otis Spunkmeyer cookies for 50 cents on Mondays after school. Until two years ago, cookies were for sale during lunch.
“Two years ago in October the food service director came to me when I was cleaning up at the end of the lunch period,” marketing education coordinator Chris Marvel-Loskot said. “He told me I was going to have to stop selling the cookies.”
Marvel-Loskot said they have been selling cookies at ROHO Depot from when it first opened in 2000 until the Texas Public School Nutrition Policy forced her to stop selling cookies and start researching an alternative.
“I thought I would try a coffee bar because I always wanted to open up one of those,” Marvel-Loskot said.
She bought an espresso machine and started selling frappuccinos during lunch. Students weren’t buying as many as she hoped because it took too long to make the drinks.
“Last year I put a formula together for frappuccinos and smoothies that fit the guidelines,” Marvel-Loskot said. “Those were very successful but they’re three times the work and not nearly as profitable as the cookies. But it keeps us alive out there and still gives me some money that I can help the school with some things from time to time.”
Marvel-Loskot has been using ROHO Depot’s income to give back to the students, by helping the clubs and classes at Rider and helping individual students.
“The kids were making it profitable so I should give that money back to the students,” Marvel-Loskot said. “I don’t just dump the money into the school’s account. It gets put in my account and as needs come up, (like) kids that need glasses that can’t afford them, or coats in the winter. Occasionally we’ve bought yearbooks for kids who can’t afford a yearbook. Those are small little things that pop up.”
Marvel-Loskot had no idea that her cookies would be so popular. She expected to sell 100 cookies a day but within a week it rose to almost 1000.
“Another problem was staffing,” Marvel-Loskot said. “I thought we were just going to sell a couple of cookies each lunch period and it was going to be smooth sailing. I very quickly realized we did not have the size of staff I needed out there.”
Students who are interested in working at ROHO Depot should talk to Marvel-Loskot.
“I have a very simple application that you would fill in,” she said. “I am looking for somebody that I feel I can trust, and somebody that I can depend on. Your absences have to be low, very low.”
Unlike a class, students who work at the ROHO Depot learn by experience.
“I really don’t give them formal teaching,” she said. “They’re learning the concepts of marketing product, price, place, and promotion. It’s on-the-job training. You show up and I tell you what to do as we go.”
At ROHO Depot the students are taught to adapt to the changing ways of business.
“We’re constantly evolving out there,” Marvel-Loskot said.