Dining Services works to track the buying habits of the University population to keep track of when and where the dining halls are busiest. It uses this information to set the most efficient operating hours for each location.

Michael Paulus, director of Dining Services, can tell a student what food they bought, the time they bought it and the dining hall they bought it from.

“We do this process for every single operation. We do it every year and we will add hours where it’s needed, we’ll take away hours where it’s inefficient,” Paulus said.

One time where Dining Services has taken hours away is on weekends, but some students would like to see dining halls open later Friday and Saturday.

“Everybody wants us to be open 24 hours a day, but nobody will use us,” Paulus said.

Paulus said a lot of students either go home on the weekends or go downtown and don’t come back to campus until late, which creates a gap in time where no one is going through the dining areas.

Sophomore Eric Satterlee said a lot of the time he isn’t on campus on the weekends so the change in hours doesn’t usually affect him.

“Usually on the weekends I’m not here, I’m at my friend’s house and we just order a pizza,” Satterlee said.

Paulus said keeping dining halls open later on campus during those times when students are gone can become costly.

“If I’m not doing anything between 12 a.m. and 2 a.m. and I’m waiting for somebody to come through the door, obviously there’s a cost to perform that service,” Paulus said.

Paulus said many people don’t realize Dining Services is financially independent from the rest of the University.

“We operate completely on our receipts or our revenue. If we take a loss, we pay for those losses,” he said. “And if we can’t be profitable and maintain our efficiencies, we can’t keep investing for the students.”

Paying for those losses could mean an increase in the price of student meal plans, which Paulus said Dining Services tries to avoid.

“As of last year, there’s no increase in meal plan for the first time in almost 20 years,” he said.

But if there aren’t enough customers coming into the dining areas late at night to offset operating costs, there is a greater chance that meal plan prices will raise again, Paulus said. Some students would rather not see that happen.

“I don’t want to pay for it if I’m not going use it,” Satterlee said.

Freshman Symone Pearson said she’d like to see more dining halls open later, but not if it costs more.

“If it comes to paying more, I’d keep it the same,” Pearson said.

In addition to tracking cash register transactions, Dining Services uses other methods to set the most effective operating hours for the different facilities.

It studies the different facilities in regards to the student communities that live nearby and tries to adjust the hours to fit the schedules of different student demographics.

“I’ve got the majority of upperclassmen up here [by The Oaks]. I was [serving] 15 people for breakfast. To open up this huge facility for 15 people doesn’t make sense,” Paulus said. “We started taking a look at the Carillon Place which serves an underclass population and their breakfasts were enough to support that operation. So we have them opening earlier.”

Paulus said Dining Services also conducts surveys with residents to ask them how late they would visit the dining areas. A survey done this past year showed a majority of students wouldn’t visit the locations past 2 a.m.

“If people will be there and buy it, absolutely, that’s what we’re in the business for,” Paulus said. “But if nobody’s there, well, my other obligation is to reduce those costs for [the students] so I don’t have to turn around and raise your prices next year.”

The dining hours are always subject to change and Paulus said they are already making plans for spring 2013.

“I’m already taking a look at our traffic patterns just to make sure that our operating hours are okay for next semester,” he said. “We survey and we track those so religiously, taking a look at those trends so we can adjust accordingly, even by the semester.”

But if the demand isn’t there, dining hours will continue to close earlier on weekends.

“It’s trying to keep [students’] costs down and manage this as a business so we can return funds or profit back to the University and not have to raise your prices. That’s the bottom line,” Paulus said.