Dining Hall Services Experience Major Shift

A long with many changes to the appearance of campus this semester, Plymouth State University has made major revisions to the dinning services and locations. Hours of service and locations have changed for nearly every facility on campus, including On The Go, Prospect Dining Hall, and the Woods Café. 

As students may recall from last year, Prospect Dining Hall served food throughout the day while reducing service during the slower hours of the day. Prospect currently shuts down twice a day in-between breakfast and lunch, and again between lunch and dinner. Prospect also serves breakfast 7:30am-9:50am, lunch from 11:30am -1:50pm, and dinner from 4:45pm-6:50pm. Finally, on the weekends, Prospect is now offering brunch service from 10am-1:20pm, instead of serving breakfast and lunch, while dinner is still served at normal times.

“The goal is always to try and have a win/win situation, providing what the students want in the most cost effective manner,” said Assistant Vice President for Student Affairs Frank Cocchiarella. “Continuous feeding was not utilized by very many students; it was not something that was ranked as most important or highly praised and was fairly expensive to provide.” 

However, the sudden change has been met with frustration from many students accustomed to the traditional hours. “While I entirely understand the need for changes in how the dining hall and dining services on campus operate, I feel that the communication of the plan was not executed well,” said Alex Herbst, Student Body President. 

On The Go has experienced major changes this year as well. Instead of being located outside of Prospect, it is now located within the Union Grille. And while still closed on weekends, it is now open 7:30am-5:15pm Monday to Thursday, and 7:30am-1:15pm on Fridays. “Moving On The Go was a way to provide the service in a more cost effective way, while hopefully enhancing the overall program,” Said Cocchiarella. 

 “These changes were made in order to allow students to get their meals inside rather than wait outside in inclement weather,” said Administrative Assistant Debra Underwood, who helped facilitate the changes. Students are now asked to pack their own On The Go bag rather than have it assembled by dining staff. “The hope here is that it will lead to less food waste in the future.”

Finally, the Woods Café has also seen a reduction in hours. Last year, the café was open Monday to Thursday 7:00am to 10:00am, and 7:00pm to 10:00pm, which has now been reduced to 7:30pm-9:30pm. 

Many of these changes have been attributed to the upcoming arrival of FlexCash availability in several downtown locations, as well as budget cuts needing to be made. Time will tell if this will serve as an inconvenient or effective change for the university.

Further questions can be directed towards Frank Cocchiarella at frankc@plymouth.edu.