Beginning tonight, the Marketplace will open from 10 p.m. to 1 a.m. Monday through Wednesday, giving freshmen a late-night dining option close to home.
Freshmen looking to nosh late at night will soon be able to forgo the midnight bus ride to Rick’s Diner or the 11 p.m. hike to Cosmic Cantina.
Starting tonight, the Marketplace will open from 10 p.m. to 1 a.m. Monday through Wednesday. It will offer an array of food priced-per-item available for purchase with cash or food points.
The extended hours are the beginning of a trial program designed to study the feasibility of giving freshmen greater flexibility with their board plan. Freshmen currently pay a mandatory fee for 14 all-you-can-eat meals at the Marketplace and a limited number of food points, which function like cash at most on-campus eateries. As student demand for fewer Marketplace meals has grown in recent years, dining officials have worked to find a solution that maintains the community-building focus of the board plan but allows students more options.
“Before I just dismantle the board plan, I have to test the financial waters of doing it,” said Jim Wulforst, director of dining services. “We just can’t change that quickly, but what we know is that students just don’t dine that often in the morning.”
Marketplace managers hope the increased business from offering midnight food will boost the eatery’s sales and steal some business back from the vendors that deliver restaurant food under the Merchants on Points program.
“The amount of business that off-campus does is unbelievable, so it’s kind of a no-brainer,” said Brian Haney, one of the managers at the Marketplace, adding that he hopes the Marketplace can increase its revenue with the new program.
The Marketplace has struggled to recoup costs in recent years, and ARAMARK Corp., which operates the venue as well as five other on-campus eateries, has come under fire from students for its lack of convenience and offerings.
Last year East Campus Council, led by sophomore Joel Kliksberg, campaigned against what it deemed poor food quality, limited offerings and restricted availability of meals at the Marketplace. Students were frustrated that their mandatory board plan included payment for breakfast even though many students never went. In February, Duke Student Government voted “no confidence” in ARAMARK’s food service on campus.
Since then, Kliksberg, now DSG vice president for community interaction, said the operator has improved in all the areas students requested. “I think that the joint pressure that ECC and DSG took last year expressing a lack of confidence with ARAMARK helped push forward an array of improvement,” Kliksberg said.
Students who pushed for the late-night hours said they eventually hope the midnight meal can serve as a substitute for the breakfast freshmen often skip, but Haney said the idea had not yet been presented to him. “That would be something that we’d really have to take a hard look at,” he said, alluding to the cost issues of maintaining the eatery.
Wulforst, however, said he was working with ARAMARK to make a more flexible board plan work, and if the late-night option is successful, next year’s entering class might have the option of midnight snacks instead of breakfast.
In the meantime, several freshmen said they would be more likely to call an off-campus vendor than eat yet another meal at the freshman dining hall. “If it’s that late at night, I’d probably just head over to Cosmic Cantina,” freshman Alan Payne said.
Freshman Harrison Anthony noted that even though it was only the second week of school, he was already tiring of the Marketplace’s limited offerings. “It seems like if we have to eat it twice a day anyway, then I’d rather use my points on something else—for the variety,” he said.
The Marketplace has not hired any new employees for the pilot program. Instead, managers shifted the schedules of current employees to move several lunch employees to the late-night snack shift. The six employees and manager who will work all three early morning shifts were chosen according to the union guidelines of Local 77, which represents some dining employees on campus.
“It gives them an opportunity to do something during the daytime,” Haney said, noting that employees could take classes or get a second job.
The extended hours have been discussed at the Marketplace for more than a year, but recent pressure from DSG, the Duke University Student Dining Advisory Committee and other student organizations spurred the eatery to open in the evenings.
Many of the offerings will be the breakfast and brunch items that remain nostalgic favorites of upperclassmen even after they graduate to the more varied dining options of West Campus.
The late-night food stations will feature chicken wings and omelets, as well as French toast and pancakes. The salad and fruit bar will remain open, offering students a healthier alternative to delivery pizza and Domino’s Kickers. The freshman-focused eatery will also debut a made-to-order egg station where students will be able to order two eggs scrambled or done easy over.
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