In 1996, seven New College students formed an ISP around the concept of a campus coffee house. Led by fourth-year Darilyn Avery, they worked out the specifics of a New College coffee house reality. With money from CITF, the SAC, and the NCAA, the "Barn" was renovated into the baby Four Winds Café. The following fall, Professor Fred Strobel sponsored an entrepreneurial/small business tutorial, and students Beth Faichney, Kin Ping Koo, Heather Lazar, and Mollie Lee created our business plan and mission statement. They desired the Four Winds to be a "student-run, self-supporting coffee house." The café, according to the Executive Summary in the original business plan, was "designed to be a place for the meeting of minds between students and faculty, students of New College and the University Porgram, as well as New College and Sarasota communities."

More and more, with the help of New College and our customers,
the café is becoming a place for the "meeting of minds."*

*taken from Coffeehouse Culture, a thesis by New College student Lauren Rathvon.