The Green Dragon Café lurks deep in the lower level of Sibley Hall, and has featured one of campus’s most laid-back atmospheres for coffee and chat since 1961. But new administrative measures requiring hats could threaten what has been termed “the Green Dragon brand,” and the staff is refusing to take the dictate without a fight.

“We’re strongly concerned if we were made to wear any sort of uniform, it would severely damage the atmosphere, image and employee-customer connection at the Dragon,” said Whitney Beaman ’10, a manager at the Dragon. “We’d be like fast-food employees.”

The Dragon was originally owned and operated by the College of Architecture, Art and Planning, with the tiles and light fixtures all laid by students. The Dragon was sold to Cornell Dining in 2002, but has continued to run as a virtually independent business on campus. Cornell Dining provides the café with inventory and equipment, but the day-to-day workings and scheduling are completely student-run.

“We build a lot of community around here,” Beaman said. “It kind of unifies the whole campus. Basically, we want a place where people can be comfortable to be themselves.”Casual every day: A student contemplates an order at the Green Dragon yesterday where student workers are petitioning a uniform mandate.

Cornell Dining’s crack-down on wearing hats is a function of “safety,” officials said. The students, however, cite the fact that earlier this year, the Dragon passed the Tompkins County Health Department's inspection with flying colors, outperforming such mainstay cafeterias as North Star at Appel and the Robert Purcell Marketplace Eatery.

However, according to Gail Finan ’69, the recently installed director of dining and retail services, wearing hats while serving food could make the difference between good service and “exceptional service.”

“What we’re trying to do is serve food safely,” Finan said. “The number one reason people go out to eat is not for the food, it’s for the customer service.”

Finan and Associate Director of Dining Ed Stinchcomb grad ’91 held a meeting with the Dragon staff yesterday, hearing from a range of students who were emphatically against the hat mandate. The students presented Finan and Stinchcomb with a petition protesting the hats that contained 450 signatories.

Though located in the heart of the AAP community, workers at the Dragon run the gamut from engineers to fine arts majors. Many argue that the Dragon’s community is unlike any other on campus, and must be preserved.

“There are very few things at Cornell that have any sort of posterity,” said Elias Kraushaar ’12, a Dragon staff member. “The Dragon has consistently been one of them. Just because they have a community that doesn’t sync with the University’s, doesn’t mean it’s wrong.”

Kraushaar said his mother had also worked at the Dragon when she was a student at the University; indeed, it is not uncommon for alumni to pay a visit to the beloved eatery on return trips to campus, according to current staff.

Hats are generally required at certain food industry jobs to prevent workers from transferring germs from their hair to the food. However, because the food at the Dragon is pre-made, hats are not required by Tompkins County health officials

Finan said that her primary concern with the hats is related to food safety. Many Dragon staffers, however, countered with the argument that they are more likely to touch their hair on the job if they have to worry about something on their head.

Finan expressed her appreciation for the large turnout of students, as nearly the entire Dragon staff was in attendance, as well as the passion with which many voiced their opinion.

Nonetheless, she said that a final decision on the hats was still up in the air, and she and Stinchcomb would be further discussing the issue behind closed doors.

Both the consumers and the servers at the Dragon have made it clear that their allegiances stand with tradition and community, rather than Cornell Dining mandates.

“We want the Dragon to survive, and we think we know best,” Beaman said. “If there’s no compelling evidence to say it’s necessary from a food safety perspective, I don’t know why they’d try to squelch individuality.”