Llana Samuel, News Editor
Armstrong students and staff can now get their meals to go from the Galley. The new dining option began this semester but was not advertised because it is still in its testing phase.
According to Stacy Callis, director of Dining Operations at Armstrong, to-go dining options are “not a foreign concept to university campuses.”
The new option is viable for busy students who may not have time to enjoy a sit down all-you-can eat meal.
“I don’t have to eat by myself and I can just grab food and take it with me into a meeting or to my room so I can continue [with] my day. I wish the cups were bigger though,” says sophomore Secondary education major Ashley Peterson.
Students can use their meal swipe or pay the door price to purchase a to-go container, which they can pack up to 1.5 pounds of food into. Boxes weighing over 1.5 lbs incur a $4.99 per additional pound fee. The fee was decided on after using a focus group of 26 students during the summer semester to make sure students would get the best meal value and be financially sound.
Callis’ team regularly visits other college campuses to compare their dining experience and find new ideas to improve on-campus dining options at Armstrong. Callis stated that even though the “response has been overwhelming, about 40 students use the to-go option weekly.”
Despite being able to take all you can eat to-go, students and staff cannot eat in the Galley and then take food to go. With the Galley already reaching capacity quickly during regular meal times, this concept may help balance the rush of students.
“I wish they had this option two years ago,” says Laney Thompson, a junior Radiologic Sciences major. “I was always busy with rehearsals for the plays I was in so I would always eat by myself or not at all,” she adds.
The Dining Services team is always looking for new, fresh ideas from the campus community. In fact, there are already ideas in the works for the fall semester. Their food crew meetings are held every third Thursday of the month at 7 p.m. in the MCC Food Court and everyone is welcome to attend.
