That’s good news for aficionados of the trendy, 60s-ish vegan bistro on UC San Diego campus.
Ché recently signed a long-term lease with the university following a long legal battle, which will allow it to remain at 1000 Scholars Drive South.
The Ché Café is a worker co-operative, social center, and live music venue located on UC San Diego campus.
The vegan eatery has been making improvements to its space for about three months. The Ché Café Collective is still in operation, but programming has been discontinued until construction is completed, expected this August.
UC San Diego and its four student-run cooperatives signed a new master space agreement for Che Cafe to engage with the campus community in enhancing the quality of student life and providing unique cultural experiences for students.
The agreement with Groundwork Books, the Food Co-op, the General Store Co-op and the Ché Café Collective was the product of ongoing deliberation between those student organizations and campus leadership.
“UC San Diego strongly supports the campus co-ops and the important experience they provide to our students,” said vice chancellor for student affairs Juan González. “The co-ops provide an enhanced cultural interaction with a diverse student population, bringing new opportunities and engagement that our students would not otherwise encounter. We want our co-ops to thrive and be successful.”
As part of the agreement, the co-ops will be charged rent of only $1 per year and receive free utilities, in return for UC San Diego’s making a significant investment in life and safety and other renovations to Che Café.
“The cooperatives extend their deepest gratitude to their supporters at UC San Diego and in the broader community, including volunteers, students, alumni and UC San Diego faculty and staff,” said Ché Café core member Lane Barlow.
According to Barlow, the co-ops’ encourage students as well as faculty, staff and alumni to not only patronize them, but to explore opportunities to volunteer and work. All four co-ops are accepting new member applications and provide training in many transferable skills. The relationship between Ché and UC San Diego hasn’t been cozy for some time, with arguments about rent and insurance nonpayment, allegations of UC San Diego’s attempt to decertify the collective that administers the cafe, as well as the “holdover” status in Ché’s rent agreement, plus various safety concerns dating back 10 years ago or more. UC San Diego and the Ché last signed a lease together in 2006.
Prior to the recent master space agreement with UC San Diego, Che had been operating on a month-to-month extension.
“C-h-é” stands for Cheap, Healthy Eats. But the eatery’s namesake is Argentine theorist and Marxist revolutionary Ernesto (Che) Guevara, who, in the 1950s and ’60s, rebelled against capitalismt worldwide.
As a young medical student, Guevara traveled throughout South America and was radicalized by the poverty, hunger and disease he witnessed. A major figure of the Cuban Revolution helping Castro overthrow Batista’s military regime, Guevara’s stylized visage has since become a counterculture symbol of rebellion in popular culture.
Guevara left Cuba in 1965 to foment revolution abroad, first unsuccessfully in Congo-Kinshasa, and later in Bolivia, where he was captured by CIA-assisted Bolivian forces and executed.
The Che Cafe is San Diego’s premier sober, safe, all-ages DIY music venue, where student, local, and touring bands perform several nights a week. Che Café also operates a vegan cafe and books its ballroom for meetings and workshops.
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