Due to popular demand, the Quad Café has decided to keep their new “All You Care to Eat” venue open on the weekends.
During the weekends, a divider wall is pulled out in front of Freshens, adding the Café’s Su Casa Mexican Grill and Jump! Asian Cuisine to the “all you care to eat” area. So not only do students with meal plans now have access to the Quad Café on weekends, they also have prepaid access to a la carte Mexican and Asian food.
“We try to meet the needs of both [retail and meal plan] customers,” said Craig Bowman, manager of Quad Café. “The retail isn’t doing very well, so we decided to switch the ‘all you care to eat’ venue to weekends. We’re doing this to meet the needs of the students that live on this side of campus, such as Helen Ferris and Clark, those students would be able to come on the weekends and eat.”
Quad Café first tried the new weekend venue on the 18th of April. The results were even better than expected.
“We decided to try it on the weekends to see if there truly was a demand for it and if we could serve more customers that way,” Bowman said. “The first weekend proved that we are providing more service to more customers on campus.”
According to Bowman, in the first weekend alone, around 900 people dined in the “all you care to eat” area. One of the main reasons for the venue’s move to weekends was due to complaints from the student body.
“People wanted it open on the weekends,” Bowman said. “There was some confusion, even. Maybe we didn’t market as well as we should’ve, but there was some confusion and there was more demand for the ‘all you care to eat’ than there was for the retail side.”
The Quad Café has also had success with its “To Go Box,” which allows students to take their food outside of the food court.
“To go stuff is really popular,” said Mary Cook, a greeter at the Quad Café. “Students can pay $7 to get a container and take their food out of the café. It’s a one-time fee.”
“I really like it,” said Alyssa Jenkins, a sophomore in biotechnology. “It makes it more convenient. I can go pick up breakfast and go where I need to go on campus.”
According to Bowman, this is only the beginning and students should expect more changes to come in the fall.
The Quad Café opens from 7 am to 10 pm on weekdays and is open from 11 am to 8 pm on the weekends.