Students leave inner city – but Studenterhuset will stay

Over the New Year, the faculties of Law and Theology will move from the Inner City to the South Campus complex in the Amager district. This means that the Studenterhuset in Købmagergade is likely to say goodbye to regular customers who have visited the café before morning lessons or who have used the cafe for group work.

The Studenterhuset does not have the exact numbers on which study programmes the guests come from, but if you look over the tables on an early weekday morning, there are many law books, says Studenterhuset chairwoman Frederikke Nayberg.

The move has led to a decision to hold later opening hours for the Studenterhuset café:

“We will probably not see law students passing by at 08:01 to pick up coffee for the first lecture and we will therefore, from January first open at 9 am on weekdays,” says Jacob Ørum, Studenterhuset’s director.

Don’t earn money on morning guests

As to what the economic impact on Studenterhuset will be after regular customers move out of the City, Jacob Ørum replies:

“We are actually trying to avoid having the same patrons every day. We would rather have a visit from a variety of UCPH students than the same people sitting here every day. Our activities such as the soup kitchen and the quiz evenings are designed to create meetings across disciplines and nationalities. So the idea is that you come here to talk to someone you have not met before.”

He does not expect that the move will have a major impact on the café’s finances.

“The study groups that come here in the morning buy a couple of cheap cups of coffee. This is not something that we can feel in terms of revenue. Students use an average of DKK 30 a visit, and in the morning they buy less than in the evening. So on a morning with study groups we might just have sales of DKK 500.”

Even though the location on Købmagergade makes Studenterhuset an expensive house to run, the café is currently turning a profit, and this will, according to Jacob Ørum, continue.

“I am kicking back, relaxing,” says Ørum.

Ørum: We want to tie UCPH together

Jacob Ørum predicts that the move could even lead to more new guests finding their way to the café.

“Studenterhuset will remain in the city where UCPH has been located since the 1400s. With the division of the University into campuses, there will, more than ever, be the need of a common venue. We would like to help tie UCPH together.”

Jacob Ørum emphasizes that the Studenterhuset is an association – not just a venue. Their activities go far beyond what goes on in the cafe on Købmagergade.

The same message comes from chairperson Frederikke Nayberg:

“We are an association that works for the study environment at the University of Copenhagen. I think that this relocation will result in a good and lively study environment, and we in the Studenterhuset are happy for it,” she says.

uni-avis@adm.ku.dk