This semester, DeCafé has added a small produce section to its selection, providing access to fresh fruit and vegetables. The introduction of the produce section comes as Residence Life and AVI Foodservices have been discussing significant changes to campus dining.
Sarirose Hydahl, the AVI resident director, said the produce section was introduced as the result of student feedback to AVI Foodsystems, indicating students’ desire for access to fruits and vegetables to be sold at the only convenience store on campus.
“We’ve had a lot of student feedback, especially over the last year … requesting some fresh produce options over at DeCafé,” Hydahl said. “We finally got it kind of pinpointed, to the point where we got some specifics of what people were truly looking for. Just from seeing what [students are] purchasing, it has been extremely popular.”
Hydahl noted that students at an advisory meeting had brought up the possibility of including fresh meat options in addition to the fruit and vegetables; she noted that, while there were no concrete plans to put this into place, AVI was considering ways to implement the suggestion in the fall semester in a way that addressed concerns about a meat section being cost-prohibitive.
The addition of the produce section comes ahead of the new five-year dining plan that is expected to be finalized sometime before the fall semester, which will likely include many significant changes to existing dining options on campus. While the exact specifics of the plan have yet to be worked out, the existing plan will revolve around centralizing dining options to three dining “hubs,” with dining being confined to specific locations in the North, South, and Central areas of campus.
As part of these changes, the Housing and Dining Committee has considered proposals to move existing quick-serve dining locations such as the Rathskeller or Umami out of Wilder Hall. These changes are largely due to an apparent strain on the existing infrastructure present in Wilder Hall; proposed plans include adding an “annex” to Wilder in order to house the quick-serve options or housing them in a nearby planned student housing building.
“The proposal on the table at the moment that they’re still working through is that next to Wilder [Hall] … they would build another building, and that would have a dining space on the first floor that could potentially relieve some of the pressure on Wilder [Hall] and allow for the basement to be renovated,” Eli Ramer, College fourth-year and Housing and Dining representative for Student Senate, said.
Ramer noted that before the plan is approved, student listening sessions will take place for the student body to give feedback on the plan.
Other proposed plans have included a third quick-serve, restaurant-style dining option, although no specifics have been settled with regards to what such an addition would look like or where it would be.
Hydahl noted that several dining spaces would likely be closed for renovations for a significant period of time as a consequence of the new plan and the restructuring of dining options. She noted that such renovations and closures would take a phased approach, such as renovating one half of Stevenson Dining Hall at a time, so that the changes are as minimally disruptive as possible
