Marano Campus Center offers many alternative dining options including Palates, Cutting Board and The Crossroads. However, their hours of operation can be a bit inconvenient.
Undoubtedly, these dining areas offer a comfortable and centralized location to get food that is usually higher quality and more convenient than what is served in the dining halls.
Cutting Board is open Monday through Friday from 10:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. Palates opens at 11 a.m. and closes at 2 p.m. the same days. The Crossroads opens every weekday at 7:45 a.m. and closes at 7:30 p.m. every day except for Friday when it closes a few hours earlier at 4:30 p.m. None of these dining areas are open on the weekend.
To better benefit the Oswego State student body, Auxiliary Services should expand the hours of operation for dining areas in the campus center. Specifically, Palates and Cutting Board should stay open later in the afternoon, while The Crossroads should open for lunch hours on the weekends.
Expanded operating hours would be beneficial to students for two reasons. First, being open longer would provide added convenience for students with busy schedules and those looking for an alternative to dining hall food on the weekends. Second, longer hours means a need for more employees. Extending hours would give more students a chance to get a job on campus and current employees more opportunities to work if desired.
On campus, 2 p.m. is a common time to for class to let out. At this time, some students might be leaving their last class of the day or starting a short break between classes. Regardless, it is a time when many people eat lunch to give them the energy boost they need to make it to dinner. By this time, Littlepage and Lakeside dining halls have already closed as well. That leaves Cooper and Pathfinder as the only open dining halls at 2 p.m. Many students may not have a meal plan or could have run out of swipes for the week. Additionally, they might be in a hurry and not have time to go out of their way to sit down and eat in a dining hall. The Crossroads is open at this time, but typically has a long line as a result.
Keeping Cutting Board and Palates open until maybe 4 or 4:30 p.m. would help alleviate some of these issues. Hungry students would have more options to choose from at a time when their range of choices is small.
Opening The Crossroads on the weekend would be a boon for students, too. It is no secret that college students quickly get tired of dining hall food. Sometimes, especially on the weekend, it is nice to have a meal that is a little different from the usual grub available in Pathfinder or Lakeside. Not everyone has a car or energy to go all the way into town though. Keeping The Crossroads opening on Saturday and Sunday, even during lunch hours like 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., would provide students with a more convenient location to get a good meal on the weekend.
Auxiliary Services provides employment for over 650 students, but there are only so many hours to go around. If The Crossroads, Palates and Cutting Board stayed open longer, these three dining areas could be open a combined 36 more hours than usual. That means more hours for current employees that need them and the ability to hire more students.
It is clear Auxiliary Services and the administration need to extend the operating hours of Palates, Cutting Board and The Crossroads. This move would create more convenient and diverse dining options while increasing opportunities for student employees.
Photo by: Taylor Woods| The Oswegonian
