Contract with American Dining Creations recently approved by the Board of Trustees
BY: JACOB POLITTE
Managing Editor
The Friday afternoon of March 13, 2020 was the last time food service operated at Meramec.
During the pandemic, the college’s food service contract with Chartwells expired, and was not renewed; upon many students’ return to campus in 2021, they found that the Campus Bookstore had moved into the old cafeteria space.
While the bookstore has expanded their offerings to include some hot food, things in the Cafeteria are changing once more. This past month, a new food service contract with a different vendor, American Dining Creations, was signed by the college and recently approved by the Board of Trustees. Campus President Feleccia Moore-Davis said that she and the college as a whole expect to have “some level” of food service by April 1.
Moore-Davis said that student input, which is collected by the college in a variety of ways (through the Navigate app and at Campus Town Halls, especially) was a key factor in bringing food back to campus.
“Some students were actually invited to the presentation that [American Dining Creations] gave as well,” Moore-Davis said. “So there was student representation.”
Moore-Davis also said that the return of food service to the cafeteria won’t have a major impact on the bookstore’s on-going operations in the cafeteria space, as many items sold there will remain. While the sale and rental of textbooks will be moving to an online framework through “Akademos” and renovations are being made adjacent to the space to make it a distribution space of sorts, many items will still remain where they are.
“I believe that the bookstore will still be able to utilize the space that is facing the cafeteria right now,” she said. “So most of that activity will move to that front space. Not into where we are creating a distribution space for them.”
This is a story that is continuing to develop. For more information, stay tuned to meramecmontage.com.
