By Alison Trautmann
News Editor
In the fall of 2009, Chartwells will be changing many of its operations around Marywood. With the changing of hours of operation, expanding offerings at various locations across campus, opening a coffeehouse in the library, and beginning meal equivalency at First Stop; there will certainly be something to interest every student at Marywood.
Breakfast will no longer be offered in the main dining room. In reaction to this move, Café Ritazza (soon to be changed to Pure Vida) will be offering a new choice for breakfast called “All About Cereal.” This offering includes different kinds of cereals which are put into Chinese takeout boxes. Once the cereal is chosen, the customer will have different choices of toppings such as dried fruit as well as such toppings as jelly beans. First Stop will also have breakfast offerings to compensate for breakfast being closed in the main cafeteria.
Along with cutting breakfast, dinner will end half an hour early in the fall. Dinner will end at seven in the fall semester. However, late night will then open half an hour later at seven thirty instead of the current eight thirty opening time. Late night will continue to be offered until midnight and will also include expanded menu options for the fall semester.
There are plans for a coffeehouse to be opened in the library. This new operation will be open from ten until ten. The plans are for the coffeehouse to be located in the current glassed in study lounge to the right of the main entrance in the library. The library coffeehouse will serve “Green Mountain Coffee” and students will be allowed to take their food into the library as in other bookstores with coffee shops.
Meal equivalency will begin at First Stop in the fall, which is a change from the current policy students only being able to use pacer points to purchase food there. Along with the meal equivalency being offered at First Stop, the meal exchange rates are changing. Instead of getting three dollars for breakfast, four for lunch, and five for dinner, every meal will be five dollars.
When asked why there are so many changes being made, Tom Notchick, the Director of Dining Services, said that “It’s a domino effect. As we changed one thing we had to change a lot of other things to make it work.” The main dining room was serving a disproportionate amount of breakfasts in comparison to lunch and dinner counts so it was more cost effective to shut it down for breakfast and expand dining options in the other operations on campus. Notchick worked closely with Joe Garvey, the Vice President of Business Affairs, in order to bring about these changes. Marywood will be helping to pay for the renovations in the library and Garvey assisted Notchick in looking at the costs of changing meal equivalency. Notchick held focus groups and has received very little negative response with regards to the proposed changes. All of the negative responses up until now have been addressed. Garvey is very pleased with these changes. “For the fall we’ll be looking at some great service and we think that students will be very happy.” Garvey commented that many of the reasons for these changes are the fact that students eating habits have changed and the dining offerings need to change as well. Time will tell if these changes will have a positive impact on the dining life of Marywood students. Time and planning has certainly gone into these changes so as to make dining an enjoyable and convenient experience at Marywood.