Sleepy students in search of a study snack now face an uninspiring late-night choice between McDonald's, Jimmy John's delivery and their local vending machine. The Loop's new closing hours Sunday through Wednesday have stripped the only late-night, sit-down dining option on campus of its status as the obvious tie-breaker for hungry students seeking real brain food.
The change in closing time, from 2 a.m. midnight, is bad news for students who rely on the few reasonably healthy items on the Loop menu for their nightly energy boost. But the change is especially unfortunate for anyone with an appetite for a decent atmosphere after midnight.
After all, nothing makes for extended conversation like hot food served in a clean and well-lit place. This means that for Loop frequenters, the recent cutback in hours will change not just what goes into their mouths in the wee hours of the morning, but what comes out.
In 2007, the Campus Culture Initiative Steering Report put forth a set of dining recommendations that continue to serve as a touchstone for evaluating dining changes and as a reminder of the significant role that dining culture plays in shaping social engagement at the University.
If the irregular schedule of the average college student is any indication, the same concerns apply to the many meals students tend to eat outside conventional mealtimes. When open late, an eatery like the Loop offers students more than decent menu options: It allows students to congregate spontaneously and enjoy the full advantages of all-hours communal interchange unique to the college experience.
(McDonald's, by the way, offers none of these advantages: It is an out-of-the-way, unhealthy, cramped fast-food place with loud TV's.)
The fact is, the change in Loop hours is the biggest setback in late-night food news since the installment of a 24-hour McDonald's in the Bryan Center basement to make up for the disappearance of the distinctly more unique 24-hour Rick's Diner from McClendon Tower.
Granted, the Loop does not usually bustle with activity after midnight, which makes the decision to shorten hours sensible from a business perspective.
But even though the service may not be cost-effective, the value students derive from having an alternative to McDonald's makes subsidization from the University an appealing idea.
This particular case may be a sensible opportunity for the University to consider the benefits of venturing away from the cost-recovery model. The Faculty Commons is an example of a dining venue currently subsidized by the University, and the fact that the Loop attracts a larger percentage of the student population on a regular basis suggests that similar efforts to subsidize the popular eatery late at night may be well worth pursuing,
The University has not released any numbers, which limits our ability to assess whether subsidizing extra hours at the Loop would look as promising in detail as it does in theory. We also acknowledge that the fiscal climate makes the timing for adopting such a model less than ideal. But rough mental calculation at least suggests that the benefits of keeping the Loop open longer could potentially outweigh the operating costs.
A plate of fries at 1 a.m. may seem unimportant, but the good company and conversation that crop up around it are valuable around-the-clock in a college community. The University must take this into account if all of the dining-centered discussion-and the renovation projects currently underway-are to amount to a real investment in improving our campus culture.
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