Cafeterias adjust to surge in students

This academic year, Housing and Food Services sold approximately 500 more meal plans than last year, creating the need for more dining options and space, said John Hautz, director of auxiliary services in Housing and Food Services.

All first-year students living on the University of Cincinnati’s campus are required to have a meal plan; because Stratford Heights was purchased by UC and added to its housing options at the beginning of this fall, the first-year students living in the complex were required to purchase meal plans.

The new housing units and the large freshman class accounted for the additional meal plan sales.

To accommodate, StadiumView dining hall, which overlooks Nippert Stadium, changed from late-night made-to-order dining service to an all-you-care-to-eat buffet style lunch and dinner facility. CenterCourt dining hall, which was a breakfast, lunch and dinner option for students, is now open 17 hours a day to include a late-night buffet.

“Late-night is similar to the other services,” Hautz said. “Service is slightly reduced and not all the stations are open.”

On-campus dining halls opened Sept. 17 – each day, StadiumView serves approximately 200 people, said supervisor Maria Robbins.

“We would prefer 500-600 [people] a day,” said Maria Robbins, StadiumView supervisor. StadiumView can, at maximum capacity, seat 120 people comfortably.

Of the meals served at StadiumView, approximately 90 percent of the people redeem meals from their plans to purchase food.

For the first two days of service, Robbins stood outside StadiumView and invited people to come try the new lunch and dinner options. Half of the students were surprised and happy and the other half, Robbins said, preferred the late-night dining at StadiumView.
“Once they tried it,” Robbins said, “there were no complaints.”

The switch in dining services resulted in hiring additional employees, although a request for information on the number of new hires was not returned by press time.

At StadiumView, Robbins has a staff of 10 employees. Several of her workers have come to StadiumView from MarketPointe@Siddall.