A Taste of Yeater: Inside Our Spring 2026 Launch

On April 23rd, 2026, the Spring 2026 edition of Yeater officially debuted to the world. Having worked since January on articles, editing processes, social media output, and publication design, the launch party itself was months in the making. With the Yale community and local businesses in mind, we set out to find both a venue and menu that represented the core mission of Yeater: connecting students with both the Yale and New Haven community through food. We considered our favorite spaces on and off campus, comfort foods, and alumni owned restaurants that could host our growing group of Yeater fans. In the end, the decisions weren’t hard and the event went off without a hitch.

The venue: Poindexter cafe. Poindexter is located in The Graduate Hotel on Chapel Street (a Yeater team favorite). We have collaborated with them to create a signature Yeater drink: cold brew with homemade banana bread syrup and cold foam. The drink is a staple and seems to have caught on with both the Yale and New Haven community (fall drink pending). The Front Office Manager of the Graduate, Alexi, kindly let us use the back room of Poindexter for the launch event, keeping the coffee counter open for those who wanted to order a Yeater drink. It is a beautiful space with large central wooden tables and smaller tables along the sides of the room, ideal for a study session or coffee trip with friends. The large tables were perfect for an array of Japanese sweets and onigiri from The Loop, bowls catered from Junzi, and copies of the physical Yeater publication.

The food: Junzi Kitchen. The co-founders of Junzi, Yong Zhao and Wanting Zhang, graciously provided the food for the event. They are both Yale Alumni who jumped into the food scene soon after graduate school. They opened the first Junzi storefront in 2015. At 21 Broadway, Junzi is a student favorite and easily accessible from campus. There is also a location at Columbia University and another that recently opened at Virginia Tech. Since then they have founded and opened multiple locations of Nice Day Chinese, another student favorite, in New Haven and New York City. 

Junzi combines traditional Chinese dishes and flavors with new inventive twists. It is a classic assembly line structure: base, sauce, protein, and toppings. For a base you can choose between noodles, rice, and salad. The sauce options are diverse, ranging from more simple sesame sauce to a thick and juicy tomato and egg sauce. Next up you can choose between beef, pork, two types of chicken, and two types of tofu. The veggies and garnishes that top the bowls are colorful and fresh. They are flavorful, have many textures, and all mesh well with one another. The Junzi soy marinated eggs are a treat, soft on the inside and tangy on the outside. Some less well known options are the quarts/pints of individual ingredients. Another insider scoop that we were given by an employee is that you can order a container of their homemade beef bone broth on its own, not in the form of noodle soup which is how it is typically served. It only costs $4 and is a warm and fulfilling addition to any meal. This allows you to bring noodles, rice, or corn back to your home for multiple meals, doctored to your specific taste preferences.

The launch itself featured both wide and thin noodles, and rice bowls. They were topped with cucumber, both red cabbage, and sprouts. With a variety of proteins and sauces, Yeater fans got to pick a meal that matched their preferences. The catering itself was professional and efficient. The Yeater team picked up bags with the bowls themselves, as well as chopsticks, forks, napkins, and sauces. It was a clean and easy meal to provide for the 75 guests at the launch. Reviews were rave and more than a few people who had never had Junzi before said they were excited to go in person.