Pirates Bay, which opened in 2015, is a student-led store, where students can purchase snacks and drinks all under five dollars, with the occasional collaboration with the PHS culinary team, or fast food chains. 

“Kids don’t really eat school lunch or they don’t bring their own lunch. They come here to buy snacks or drinks instead,” said senior Kayden Collette, co-manager of Pirate’s Bay. 

Pirates Bay has to work around a set of standards and guidelines, for the snacks and drinks they serve and sell. Before the cut, Pirates Bay was not meeting those standards by serving things like candy, and sugary drinks.

“So what we did is we went ahead pulled out of the things that weren’t compliant, but we’ve been replacing with just things that are compliant,” said advisor Chantel Nicolay

According to Harris School Solutions, “80% of school districts have financial losses due to serving healthier school lunches.” 

 “I would like it to be kind of a sound store. A really nice, comfortable place for people to come a little separated from the rest of the school, as far as like not right in the cafeteria. You know, in a busy kind of coffee shop,” said Nicolay.

The cut made the Bay have to make some difficult decisions, but at the end of the day they worked around their boundaries 

“We had to cancel certain items and we had to shorten the quantity of the chips. Our snacks are smaller than what they used to be, and you can really tell,” said Pirate’s Bay employee Lester Terry Jr.

Even though students had mixed feelings about the changes made to Pirate’s Bay, because of the guidelines,  students are still given the opportunity to experience the idea of having a job.

“I really enjoyed interacting with all the students that would come up and just getting some experience you know, working kind of like a retail store, and we’re the cashiers, and our classmates are the buyers,” explained sophomore AJ Ammons.