Weekend dining leaves much to be desired

By: Megan Baker

Posted: 12/5/07

Bon Appétit has been taking great strides to decrease its waste production and become more environmentally conscious. However, there is something I think they are continuing to throw away.

And that something is my money.

Meal plans are anything but cheap. I understand that there are a lot of costs involved in feeding a college campus of upwards of 2,500 people, but we should be getting more for our money.

My main beef here is the fact that I cannot use a meal swipe on the weekends. That's right; I cannot use a meal I have paid for in full simply because it is a Saturday or Sunday night. Instead, I have to resort to using dining dollars or money out of my own pocket...something I sure don't have a lot of.

I know of countless students who have somewhere around 50 unused meal swipes left at the end of each semester, meals that could have been used on the weekends. But since it is a weekend, they are unusable? Why is that?

Another problem with weekend evening dining is that on Fridays and Saturdays, Late Night doesn't even open until 10 p.m.

There have been instances where I could not make it back to campus by regular dinnertime and thus have been forced to eat off campus because I could not wait until 10 p.m. to eat
dinner.

I understand that the situation is a trade-off because Late Night is open until 1 a.m. on these nights, but 10 p.m. is much too late for it to open, especially if you are planning to go there to eat dinner.

It is also common knowledge among students that once the weekend hits, the dinners become less than desirable.

Many students, myself included, prefer to eat off campus on the weekends because we do not want to eat the food that is offered at regular dinnertime.

I honestly believe that if students could use a meal swipe at Late Night on the weekends, Bon App would be able to retain more student business instead of driving hungry student off campus.

Just because it's the weekend doesn't mean students aren't hungry. I know Fisher is looked upon as a "suitcase school," but for those of us who actually live here on the weekends, more flexible and cost effective food options would be appreciated.

Ah, and one more thing.

Brad Waters won't stop complaining about the lack of French dressing, so could we please get that back again so I don't have to listen to him anymore?