After 
temporarily 
closing 

all 
locations 
for 
almost 
two 

months in light of the COVID-19 
pandemic, Espresso Royale Coffee 
has announced all business will 
permanently 
cease, 
including 

branch operations, catering and 
online sales. 

“Some 
would 
say 
that 
a 

company that goes out of business 
has failed; we don’t think so,” their 
website said. “Since 1987, Espresso 
Royale has served excellent coffee 
to millions of customers, has 
provided good work for thousands 
of people, and has purchased 
millions of dollars of goods and 
services from businesses around 
the country. We think that’s a 
success.”

LSA 
sophomore 
Lucianna 

Rosania said she was surprised the 
company was closing, especially 
since the coffee shop has been 
around for most of her childhood. 

“I was totally shocked when I 

found out it was closing,” Rosania 
said. “It hit a lot as an Ann Arbor 
native because I’ve been going 
there since I was 6 years old, and 
my dad is a professor at U of M so 
I have very fond memories of those 
locations.”

Besides being integral in the 

Ann Arbor community, Espresso 
Royale has also been a long-time 
campus staple. It was even voted 
Best Coffee Shop in Ann Arbor in 
2014. 

Engineering sophomore Zach 

Eichenberger 
noted 
Espresso 

Royale had a special ambiance that 
made it better than other coffee 
shops. 

“I always loved going to Espresso 

Royale,” Eichenberger said. “The 
atmosphere was really chill. It 
stood out from all the Starbucks 
and other (places) because it had 
more of a cozy atmosphere. It was 
more personal.”

Conveniently having multiple 

locations 
on 
campus, 
the 

University of Michigan community 
could often be found holding meet 
ups and doing homework while 
sipping a cup of coffee. For LSA 
sophomore Dominic Coletti, the 
Espresso Royale on South State 
Street 
and 
South 
University 

Avenue was a frequent place to 
visit both for quality coffee and a 
place to study. 

“I would always go there before 

all of my exams and just grab a 
small, hazelnut coffee because 
their hazelnut was the best out of 
anybody that I could find,” Coletti 
said. “I also lived in East Quad, so 
that was a pretty popular place to 
go and study for people that just 
needed to get out of the building 
but didn’t want to go too far, 
especially on cold, winter days.”

After the COVID-19 pandemic 

struck, classes moved online and 
Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s Stay 
Home, Stay Safe order took into 
effect, many local businesses set 
up GoFundMe pages to stay afloat. 
Many businesses told The Daily 
they question the future of the 
local economy and the possibility 
of 
reopening. 
Unfortunately 

as the pandemic dragged on, 
Espresso Royale noted “it became 
impossible for our company to 
remain viable.”

Eichenberger said he thinks the 

absence of the campus community 
played a large part in Espresso 
Royale’s closing and noted the 
misfortune of the loss of the coffee 
shop. 

“Their main source is probably 

college students, professors, and 
with 
everything 
going 
online 

they’re not going to have those 
people,” Eichenberger said. “I 
think the University (community) 
is losing something really special 
by losing Espresso Royale.” 

Summer Managing News Editor 

Francesca Duong can be reached 
at fduong@umich.edu

3

Thursday, June 18, 2020

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com NEWS

Engaging, Managing, and Bond-

ing through Race is a research 
program at the University of 
Michigan involved with helping 
Black parents and children con-
front racial stress through dia-
logue. 

Alum 
Emma 
Schmidt, 
a 

program 
coordinator 
with 

EMBRace, said the goal of the 
program is to reduce parent and 
adolescent racial stress, as well as 
promote bonding for the families 
in the program.

“A lot of the work we do centers 

around racial socialization, which 
is basically talking to children 
about what their race means and 
what the social consequences 
surrounding race are,” Schmidt 
said. 

The 
EMBRace 
program 

received 
Institutional 
Review 

Board approval in winter 2020 and 
was set to launch its intervention 
program in Detroit this summer. 
But with the COVID-19 pandemic, 
EMBRace leaders postponed the 
program due to restrictions on 
working directly with Detroit 
residents.

With the delay and limited 

ability to do in-person work, 
research assistants such as Public 
Health senior Nia Watkins have 
been doing transcriptions and 
observational coding of videos 
from the EMBRace program in 
Philadelphia, as well as weekly lab 
meetings.

“The program has been done 

in other cities, most recently in 
Philadelphia,” Watkins said. “I 
know that there’s been a lot of 
positive responses there; we’re 
looking at a lot of that data.”

Watkins said her involvement 

in EMBRace gave her the ability 
to understand perspectives on 
current racial tensions from those 
outside her age group. 

“As a member of EMBRace, I’m 

thinking like how are young kids 
experiencing this, what are they 
thinking when they see this and 
how are their parents talking to 
them,” Watkins said. “I think I 
have a broader array of thought 
looking at these topics, because 
I just realized that there are 
younger kids who also have to deal 
with this and it’s not just me and 
people my own age.”

The program — which was 

founded by Dr. Riana Anderson, 
University 
researcher 
and 

assistant 
professor 
of 
health 

behavior and health education 
— is an eight session family 
program that brings Black parents 
and their children together for 

conversations about race, cultural 
pride, discrimination and stress 
management.

Schmidt said the plan for 

the program is to have families 
with children between the ages 
of 10 and 14 meet for an hour 
and a half each week to engage 
in 
conversations 
surrounding 

race. These conversations can be 
facilitated through a variety of 
techniques such as role playing, 
debating and art projects.

Schmidt 
got 
involved 
with 

EMBRace after taking PUBHLTH 
308: Black American Health: A 
Focus on Children, Families, and 
Communities with Dr. Anderson 
as an undergrad.

“(The class) was mostly based 

on racial disparities in Detroit, 
and 
structural 
barriers 
and 

structural racism,” Schmidt said. 
“It was eye-opening for me (that) 
as a white person, I could be able 
to use my privilege and power and 
education and my middle class 
status to be able to try and help 
people and try to reduce these 
barriers that so many people don’t 
even recognize.”

With the international protests 

against police brutality sparked 
by the killing of George Floyd and 
prominence of the Black Lives 
Matter movement in recent weeks, 
Schmidt said she felt EMBRace’s 
research has been emphasized.

Research program EMBRace 
to open new place in Detroit

IULIA DOBRIN
Daily Staff Reporter

Design by Hibah Chugtai

Espresso Royale 
Coffee announces 
permanent closure 

FRANCESCA DUONG

Summer Managing News Editor

Read more at michigandaily.com

Local college staple closes locations around the 

country amid COVID-19 pandemic

University helps families 

handle racial stress 
through dialogue

