Dining halls on campus are always changing to keep up with the student populations needs, and the renovations being made this summer are going to be no different.
Kreischer Sundial is having renovations to further improve the quality.
Changes to dining halls on campus are a yearly occurrence, said Mike Paulus, the director of dining services.
One form of data collection is used to assist Dining Services in better serving students, said Paulus.
“We send out a preference survey to our residents primarily Harshman and Kreischer to see what we are trying to achieve,” Paulus said.
The surveys are done each semester, and Paulus said all information is taken into account.
“We analyze every single piece of our businesses every single semester, not just once a year but every single semester,” Paulus said.
“We’re reviewing operational hours, we’re reviewing all menu preferences, our culinary team and marketing teams are developing the brands we will be implementing there next fall,” Paulus said.
After the closing of Founders Keepers, some students began to speculate that the Sundial would soon be closing.
“I’m not closing it,” Paulus said. “I have too many residents over in that quadrant.”
In January the Sundial cut some of its early morning hours, and the Kreischer Outtakes expanded its hours to make up for the loss.
On average of Sundial had 20 students participating in the breakfast hours from 7:30 a.m. to 9 a.m.
“That’s 10 people an hour,” Paulus said. “It takes me 25 [people] to open the building.”
Dining Services makes their decisions to benefit students, said Sarah Waters, director of Residence Life.
“They make informed decisions about counts, and look at who uses the facility when, so there is definitely still services available in Kreischer,” she said.
New things in the dining centers will affect students on campus in one way or another, Waters said.
“Anything that changes always impacts the students who live on campus and in the residence halls,” she said.
Some of the changes made to the dining hall are due to the success of the new dining options.
“To be quite honest we are a victim of our own success,” Paulus said. “We’ve had a noticeable decline in participation at [the Sundial], and that could be attributed to all of the new all you care to eat facilities, or the brand new renovations at the Student Union with all those new concepts.”
One thing the surveys showed is that residents have a preference for novelty bars, such as nacho night, pasta and gourmet burgers among others.
“One thing being considered is a dedicated station that does nothing but rotating bars, so you would have a different rotation, same thing every Monday but a different rotation everyday on some of those more popular bars,” Paulus said.
Junior Nick Badman said if he had the choice to build anything on campus he would build a Raising Cane’s.
“It’s a really good chicken place,” Badman said.
There are no further plans to physically change the Sundial, Paulus said.
