Raising the Price on the Student Social Life

The Cellar Pub, a non-profit on-campus pub tailored to the student budget, is raising its prices. Due to inflation and fewer customers, the days when students could afford The Cellar are slowly going extinct.

Ellie Snow, a second-year student at St Thomas, has found any creature comforts to be out of reach with the rising cost of daily living. The Cellar has been her go-to outing with friends and the loss of this tradition has been difficult and disheartening.

“With everything getting more expensive, I don’t have room to go out as much anymore. The Cellar especially, was my friends and I’s favourite place to go for some cheap food and drinks but even that now is getting to be a lot.”

For as long as the St Thomas and the University of New Brunswick have existed, there has been a campus pub, somewhere for students to escape the pressures of academia and give them a chance to get their heads out of the books. Since 1994, that place has been The Cellar. It draws in all ages, from students to alumni. It has become representative for many, of fond memories in the making.

Affordability remains a key concept, as student budgets are tight. After Covid-19 though, the word affordability has begun to lose meaning as the budgets for both students and small businesses, such as The Cellar, have only gotten tighter.

Most menu items have only gone up a dollar or two in prices, though some have shot up by as much as five dollars. Although this adjustment is relatively small, the few dollars change can make all the difference to students already struggling. The Cellar is offering weekly deals & activities to help draw in the crowds.

“Food prices, gas prices, all of this is all going up; kind of makes it hard for people to even want to go out now, especially to the cheap pub on campus because prices are still going up and it starts to look like every other restaurant to some extent. Still people are skeptical so obviously if we’re not making the money at The Cellar, somethings going to have to bend or break and the prices are going to have to go up to try and keep the affordable prices as low as we can,” said The Cellar cook, Johnathan Desroches.

Desroches points to the vulnerability of International students in today’s financial crisis, as they are already paying more in tuition and expenses. So, these price increases have made affording a social life to be especially difficult. It’s important to acknowledge the disadvantage our International students are at, in trying to find a balance between up keeping bills and making time for themselves to unwind.

The economy is in a vicious cycle, leaving students short of cash and small businesses raising prices, making them even more unaffordable. Students like Ellie Snow are left longing for a time come and gone, mourning the age of affordability.