The College Market offers the community a ‘labor of love’

POCATELLO — Customers can eat a variety of sandwiches, salads, soups and coffee at an establishment that’s tucked away from Pocatello’s busiest traffic.

The College Market is a restaurant and coffee shop that’s been operating for well over twenty years only a block away from the Idaho State University campus. At 604 South 8th Avenue, the coffeehouse not only gets college student customers, but also people from all over the community.

“People that have been here for awhile know about it,” said Zeke Castaneda, a manager and barista at the College Market. He said the customer base is a mix of college students and people revisiting and seeing how much it’s changed and continued to improve.

Castaneda joined the Gate City community when he started attending ISU. At the same time, he started working at The College Market and he found working there made it easier for him to get to know people and become comfortable.

“This place has been a major part of me living here. As a college student being able to come here when I’m not at work and study because it’s just a really nice place to be,” Castaneda said.

In his time working at the coffee shop, he said it’s gotten busier, and it’s also become more of a restaurant. The College Market offers a wide variety of coffee, breakfast and lunch items which Castaneda called a labor of love.

One of The College Market’s newest additions are flights of coffee. Customers can order a variety of coffees to drink, served to them on a board that was hand painted by employees of the coffeehouse.

For early morning customers, one of the many breakfast sandwiches they can find is the Gouda sandwich, served with with pesto, mayo, gouda cheese and an egg omelet with spinach and mustard.

A lunch combo offered by the coffeehouse is the Grand Teton sandwich with a side of French onion soup. The sandwich, named after the iconic Idaho mountains, is served with olive tapenade, provolone, ham, salami, bologna, greens, oil and vinegar.

Any customers who aren’t interested in a sandwich can find a number of salads on the menu, including the Tron, served with bleu cheese, bacon, chicken, croutons and balsamic vinegar.

The College Market serves eight breakfast items, nine paninis, six wraps and four salads.

With the increase in customers, the coffeehouse has shifted it’s summer hours to still open at 7 a.m. but close at 8 p.m.

Castaneda said The College Market offers customers more than what a typical chain can provide.

“Chains are great. There’s lots of places that do really good food, really good coffee, but I just haven’t gotten as much out of any sort of like big monolith chain (as I have here),” Castaneda said.