Christine Menges |
When students walked into the Bauccio Commons after spring break, some of them wandered around for a few minutes, wondering where their favorite sodas had gone.
Drinks that had once lain in a large trough behind the coffee island had been dispersed, and in their place was a long table with individual seating. Other tables and chairs had also shuffled around.
Kirk Mustain, general manager of Bon Appetit, said one factor behind the changes was old equipment. The old refrigerators that held most of the drinks were starting to break down, so Mustain decided to pull them out.
Individual bar-style seating took the place of the refrigerators. Mustain said the individual seats will help with space efficiency, because these seats will offer a space for students who want to sit alone. Additionally, these seats now have power outlets, which had been rare in the Commons before.
Mustain said the arrangement of the tables by the fireplace had to do with crowding.
“All those tables were clustered together, and it was really hard to get through there,” Mustain said. “We also wanted to put some tables by the window as it starts getting nice out.”
Some students, like senior Sally Cook, do not like the changes.
She was sitting in one of the low booths that had replaced the spindly tables along the left wall of The Commons. Gesturing to the sporadic placement of the different booths around her, she said that the space feels awkward.
“I feel like when I sit here, I’m on display,” Cook said.
A group of freshmen gathered in the same area also did not like the table switch because the new seating does not suit large groups as well.
“Here, it’s nice now to relax in between meals, but if you want to eat dinner with a big group, it’s a lot harder now,” freshman Halle Brady said.
But some students feel the remodel is an improvement.
“When you walk in, I feel like the way it looks now, it’s a lot more casual and inviting,” freshman Zachary Neubauer said.
Many students said they overheard rumors that the changes were not aesthetic ones, but functional ones to discourage stealing.
Mustain said this was not the goal of the new arrangement.
In the future, Mustain said Bon Appetit will implement more changes to enhance the program. These changes will include providing more value for meals by starting to include drinks with meals in the fall. Mustain is also looking at moving away from bottled beverages and adding drinks other than soda to the program to add more variety.
Christine Menges is a reporter for The Beacon. You can reach her at Menges15@up.edu or on Twitter @ChristineyBird.
