User:Jrb374/Ithaca Bakery and Collegetown Bagels

Ithaca Bakery and Collegetown Bagels Our group is proposing the idea of creating a Wikipedia page for Ithaca Bakery Company. This includes both “Ithaca Bakery” and “Collegetown Bagels”. Currently, there is a Wikipage for Ithaca, NY which mentions Ithaca Bakery, but no page for the actual company. Given the success of the company and history and presence it has in the Ithaca community, we feel that this would be a beneficial addition to the Wikipedia pages. Additionally, there will be a wide variety of sources available since local newspapers, University articles, personal interviews, and historical sources that exist and are obtainable.

History

Establishment

Opening on May 14th 1910, Ithaca Bakery has existed in Ithaca, in the same location, for more than 100 years, dating back to when Ithaca was only 22 years old . Before the 1950’s, Bruno Mazza Sr. sold the bakery that he had opened to the Zazzara family . In the late 1980s, the Brous and Nehaffey families, already the proprietors of Collegetown Bagels, took over the management of the bakery . Today, between Ithaca Bakery and Collegetown Bagels, more than 180 people are employed, and all the owners are either native Ithacans or have lived here for several decades.

Affiliations

• Added the sections.

Tpn22 (talk) 21:06, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

Collegetown Bagels

Collegetown Bagels (CTB), located on College Avenue at the edge of Cornell University's campus, is one of five Brous & Mehaffey stores, the original being Ithaca Bakery. Originally, the restaurant was started by three young entrepreneurs from Long Island. After one year of business, CTB was sold to a local business who owned Ruloff's, a bar and restaurant right next door. Gregar Brous began working at CTB for his last two years in college, while his parents, Anne and Ira Brous, taught at Ithaca College. After a second location was opened on Aurora Street in downtown Ithaca, both stores were put up for sale. On January 1, 1980, the restaurants were purchased by the Brous & Mehaffey family. Within three years, CTB Appetizers (now another Ithaca Bakery located in the Triphammer mall) was opened as a deli and full-service catering center .

While all five restaurants are owned and operated by the same family, each location is an independent organization and Collegetown Bagels is especially different given its unique college town location on College Avenue. Cornell students are the main consumers at this location, which has been ranked among the top 10 coffees on campus . Many articles have been written about the establishment in the on-campus newspaper, The Cornell Daily Sun, including a feature on the popularity of the organization on late weekend nights. As Ithaca bars close at 1:00am, CTB remains open until 2:00am, oftentimes becoming a hot spot for students to gather once the bars have declared last call . But since going wireless in 2004, Collegetown Bagels has also drawn a large crowd of students during the week, as well. The restaurant is often filled with students utilizing the free wireless Internet while completing homework assignments or holding group meetings .

Menu

• Creating a chart to organize the menu items available on the website. Tpn22 (talk) 21:22, 28 September 2012 (UTC)
• Great idea-- hopefully this adds a more non-promotional aspect Sckim125 (talk) 04:00, 1 October 2012 (UTC)
• So I had started making the chart - and had downloaded the whole Ithaca Bakery Sandwich menu...and there are over 80 sandwiches with full descriptions and I think if we included them all it's going to look messy (especially because that's only sandwiches and there are still unique soups, drinks, etc on their menu). So maybe we should only include their signature dishes and I'll write about the different types of sandwiches they offer instead of including the whole menu. We can also maybe include the downloadable menu here but I'm not sure if that would be 'promotional' or not. Tpn22 (talk) 16:29, 1 October 2012 (UTC)
• What if we list the types of food they have and link a picture of the menu or something? We'll just be careful not to sound promotional and make sure we just list the items as facts Sckim125 (talk) 17:25, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

Sustainability and Community Involvement

Ithaca Bakery uses three key initiatives to support sustainability: organics and fair trade, solar power, and reducing waste. In the restaurant, there are notations of which organic flours are used in each of their breads. Additionally, the Cayuga Coffee that is served at Ithaca Bakery is Fair Trade-certified and organic, except for two flavored varieties.

The bakery also partnered with Renovus Energy and the New York State Energy Reserach and Development Authority (NYSERDA) to install a 15kW grid-connected solar electric system by installing 90 solar photovoltaic (PV) panels on the roof of the eatery. These solar panels generate about 10% of the energy that it uses through the PV system and saves about 22,000 pounds of carbon dioxide per year, about the consumption of 32 trees. The owners have placed a digital display that provides instantaneous power output, total energy produced, and the quantity of carbon dioxide avoided near the entrance of the building.

The eatery also prides itself on the commercial composting and recycling system that has been implemented. The eatery provides the option of reusable or compostable cutlery and plates, and encourages customers to compost any food waste and compostable utensils in the designated bins. There are also containers dedicated to recycling that collect glass, cans, plastic, paper, and newsprint. Sckim125 (talk) 05:06, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

• Removed social media page. Tpn22 (talk) 21:05, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

THOUGHT PROCESS

Sections for the article:

1. I. History of Ithaca Bakery
2. II. Collegetown Bagels
3. III. Sustainability Initiatives
4. IV. Social Media

This is a good set of sections. Why did you choose them and how will you make sure it covers everything? You also need to be more descriptive about what content will go into each section. LeshedInstructor (talk) 14:06, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

• In order to avoid sounding biased or promotional, I think we should make sure to keep things to a "historical" or fact-based. Maybe we should get rid of the social media aspect in order to avoid just discussing all their promotions? Sckim125 (talk) 20:52, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

• That's a really good point. I think it would sound really promotional, now that I think about it. I like that we can instead expand on other things. Jrb374 (talk) 20:55, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

• If we split the History section into Historical Background and Menu Development, and focus more on how it came to be and scrap the social media section. If we talk too much about how they promote themselves on twitter and facebook (and the discounts they have), I think it will sound too biased. Tpn22 (talk) 20:57, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

• okay, cool we can add the menus now to the new section. Good call on making a new section, instead of the Social Media element. Jrb374 (talk) 21:08, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

• So the menu is really long and I think it will be enough to just include their current menu divided up into sections (e.g. drinks, sandwiches). So I'm going to add that section now. Tpn22 (talk) 21:20, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

• agreed. good call! Sckim125 (talk) 04:01, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

• I still haven't gotten a response to my posts asking for help from Ithaca, NY or the Cornell University page. How about you guys, any success? Sckim125 (talk) 17:44, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

• I haven't either - posted on Food Portal and several other bakery talk pages and haven't gotten responses. I also posted for help for Piotr so hopefully he will get back to us asap. Tpn22 (talk) 17:46, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

Existing sources:
http://ithacabakery.com/

   Menu, locations, history, sustainability

http://www.energysage.com/projects/ithaca-bakery-ithaca-ny

   Energy systems of Ithaca Bakery

http://cornellsun.com/node/52407

   Cornell Sun article about Ithaca Bakery owner and his new restaurant

http://www.facebook.com/ithacabakery https://twitter.com/IthacaBakery

    Social Media for IB

http://www.facebook.com/collegetownbagels https://twitter.com/3CTB

   Social Media for CTB

Good start. You also need to make sure you reach out and find other sources, possibly external to Ithaca and Cornell, to show a neutral point of view. For example, I did a quick Google Books search for "Ithaca Bakery" and found the following books: "Ithaca as it was and Ithaca as it is" - a first mention of Ithaca Bakery pointing to the rich history and significance of the business to the local economy; various tourist guide books mentioning Ithaca Bakery/CTB as a place worth stopping by in the Finger Lakes region - again, indicates the significance of the business to tourism and as such to the local economy. LeshedInstructor (talk) 14:06, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

Other Content

• Images of the locations, including older images from archives of Ithaca Times, or the Sun, if possible

You will need to be sure you use the correct Wikimedia Creative Commons licensing. Possibly contact Ithaca Bakery and ask permission to use historical photographs from their website, or take photos by yourself and upload them to Wikimedia Commons. Gabriel Mugar could help you with figuring out the licensing issue. LeshedInstructor (talk) 14:06, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

Links to other articles

• Cornell University
• Ithaca College
• Ithaca
• Link to different food items?

Good start. Also, who in Wikipedia will you be contacting to receive help about creating this article? Especially given this is going to be an article about a business - which is always suspected in Wikipedia to be promotional, you will need other Wikipedians to vouch for your article. This will increase the chances of having your article be kept and not deleted. LeshedInstructor (talk) 14:06, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

Responsibilities:

• Josh - History
• Sooyeon
• Trisha

More information needed here on who will do what - not only in terms of content, but also formatting, image licensing, etc. LeshedInstructor (talk) 14:06, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

Instructor's Feedback

This is an interesting topic to pursue, especially given it's significance in the culinary and economic contribution to Ithaca. There are few issues, however, that you need to be careful about in writing this article. Additional comments appear above where relevant.

• The article cannot appear as if it is promotional material. In other words, it shouldn't seem as if Ithaca Bakery is related to the creation of this Wikipedia article to promote their business. Even if you love Ithaca Bakery/CTB, you have to be careful about this. Think about this as encyclopedic material - does it really matter that Ithaca Bakery appear in an encyclopedia? If you believe so, then you should convince the Wikipedia community - otherwise you will face deletion.
• Whatever appears in the talk page (this page) should be discussion about what should and should not go into the article. Keep the article itself - even if it is under your namespace - for the content of the article itself.
• You have to be careful about your formatting - for example, you created a dashed box, but did you intend to do that? Also, in the sections numbering, you used '#' to indicate numbers, and then also added to Roman letters numbering. I suggest you consult the help page on using the Wiki markup to ensure your page formatting follows what you were attempting to achieve.

Good luck! LeshedInstructor (talk) 14:06, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

Observers' Feedback

• Hey guys, very interesting topic! I think you could do a lot with it! I generally agree with the instructor about keeping the article non-promotional. I think you should focus on the history and cultural significance of CTB. It would be interesting to know if any famous Ithacans were known to go to CTB/IB. For the image licensing, you should take pictures of both locations so that way you own the rights and do not need to worry about who owns the picture. I am definitely looking forward to seeing the article expanded! Ccg49 (talk) 20:32, 24 September 2012 (UTC)
• The article topic you guys chose is extremely interesting. It would be interesting to know the history of the management, maybe some historical menus from the past? Although it could be seen as promotional, you could include the special deals that CTB has, like bakers dozen on Tuesday of the month (I think that's right). On that note, taking pictures (with permission) of old menus and such could add value to the article. Hela47 (talk) 02:49, 25 September 2012 (UTC)
• Ithaca Bakery.. my fave! Like my fellow watchers, I think this is a great topic that should be a fun write and an interesting read. I like how you noted where the inspiration for the topic came from, allowing us (pretending we did not go to Cornell) to have some context.I like the sections you chose but as the professor said, there needs to be color around why these sections. For example, what is the purpose of the social media section? To represent a change in their strategy? I would be sure to tie the sections together so the article flows. I am excited to see how this article will form and what "Wikipedians" will end up working with you all on your article! The history of CTB is very important and also, I think possibly in there branding should be mentioned - did CTB always pride itself on having a plethora of bagel combinations? For sources, I think you would need to rent out some books on Cornell and on the Ithaca community as mentioned by the professor. While you need to avoid making it seem promotional, highlighting how it attracts its customers is important as well.--Agarden1991 (talk) 05:57, 25 September 2012 (UTC)
• Just make sure that you find enough independent, reliable sources to satisfy the notability criteria. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 20:15, 26 September 2012 (UTC)
  • Note further feedback posted at User_talk:Jrb374/Ithaca_Bakery_and_Collegetown_Bagels#Suggestions_from_a_random_passerby. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 18:14, 2 October 2012 (UTC)
• Fabulous topic idea! CTB and Ithaca Bakery are definitely drawing points of the Cornell University experience and prospective students deserve to know about them before coming here. I think you should expand on the location section and be more specific (you allude to there being 5 locations but don't mention where they actually are). It took me 2 years to realize there was a CTB on East Hill Plaza! I also think images would be extremely helpful in communicating the wonder that is CTB. You could take a photo of the menu, which is hand drawn with chalk, to show some of the specialty items and drinks that rotate throughout the year - like my personal favorite, the Big Foot. You could also discuss the most popular items on the menu, which may require talking to staff or management to see if they keep a record of which food items are most frequently ordered. It would also be interesting to learn how new items are added to the menu. I know at least one sandwich is named after a Cornell student ( the "Zabs"), which I think is pretty unique and would be a cool story to add into the article that shows how intertwined CTB is with the Cornell population. To ensure that the article is not promotional, maybe take a look at other restaurant Wikis for inspiration. Here's one on Moosewood Restaurant, another eatery in Ithaca, that may be helpful: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moosewood_Restaurant. Good luck on finishing the article! Sam655 (talk) 15:02, 13 September 2018 (UTC)sam655