With a new school year underway, Sodexo Dining Services at DU has expanded upon current operations in order to provide more food options for students.
Options include a new meal plan, the debut of an Einsteins Bros Bagels in the Daniels College of Business (DCB), and a Subway re-opening in Driscoll Underground.
After a year of remodeling and several months worth of delays, Subway opened for regular business hours on April 21, and Sodexo is hosting its grand opening Sept. 18.
According to Resident District Manager Ira Simon, the new Sodexo changes were spawned by feedback from students about how Sodexo could add more dining options on campus.
“Basically, we’re following a food service master plan that we created back in 2012,” said Simon. “We used a number of different methods to determine what changes should be made [this year]. Primarily, we used surveys, focus groups, one-on-one meetings with stakeholders and follow up surveys. We really tried to understand what the campus population was doing during meal periods.”
Simon further commented on how the addition of Einstein Bros was partially due to the high amount of traffic DCB receives daily.
“Almost 14 percent of the campus population was in Daniels daily at noon. Daniels was another opportunity for us to implement another program that would drive business and drive participation,” said Simon. “Once we opened up the Front Porch Café in the Anderson Academic Commons, we learned that if you give people the right concept in the right location, you will drive business.”
Meal plans were another area of focus for Sodexo this year, including the addition of a new 125-Block plan, which includes 125 total meals per quarter, with $225 in meal plan cash on one’s DU ID card, which can be used at select on-campus eateries.
“We want students to feel like that they can eat anywhere on campus with their meal plan,” said Simon.
“On the unlimited plan, students were eating roughly 12 meals a week. We created the 125 block over the ten week quarter and then added $225 to it, because we felt that students want to access the retail locations on campus. We also felt that some students wanted the peace of mind about eating meals and not worrying about running out,” she said.
Simon additionally explained that if students are not satisfied with their current meal plans, including the 125-Block plan, they are able to submit changes to their plans every quarter.
Simon also said that Sodexo plans to bring a World of Wings shop into the the new Daniel Felix Ritchie School of Engineering and Computer Science building when it is completed in December of 2015.
