Photo provided by Ted Wolfe
By Ted Wolfe, Managing Editor of Content
Would you be willing to wait two hours for a grilled cheese in a restaurant? What about an hour for a sub? This is the situation at Hawk’s Nest. This is only the beginning of the many issues with Dining Services.
Before the semester started, Dining Services announced that all ordering for Hawk’s Nest would be done through the Sidekick app, apart from Bistro ‘58. Within a day of Hawk’s Nest opening, there were already plenty of issues.
It began with the wait times. The Sidekick app told students it would take around 20 minutes to get their food. It ended up taking around an hour. Students would stand outside Hawk’s Nest waiting for their food with their phones saying, ‘Almost Ready.’ Not only were students upset, but the staff were showing signs of stress as well.
After a couple days of insanity, more accurate times were displayed on Sidekick. However, 136 minutes is not something anyone wants to see before they order their chicken tenders.
Time management is always talked about as an important skill for college students, but how can we manage our time when we must wait two hours for food? Many students would have to order in class to prepare for that sort of wait, but some professors do not want to see phones out during class time.
Students were forced to either go to class hungry or be late to class. This is a decision that no person should have to face.
Now, wait times are a guessing game. It could say 74 minutes but be ready in 20. There is no true way to tell how long it will take for your food to be ready. The app does not consider the time it takes for the staff to move the bags of food to the pickup racks.
The easiest fix to this problem would be to hire more staff. Susquehanna does not have unlimited money, but why is Dining Services not higher on the list? I believe that sports are integral to college life, but are they more important than students getting their lunch and dinner at a reasonable and expected time? The staff who work in Hawk’s Nest are working their butts off, and more staff would help to ease the load on each person.
My other big issue with Dining Services is the takeout policy for the Evert Dining Room. The takeout policy consists of a student purchasing reusable containers and then giving the staff member at the front desk their ID card to swipe and hold. The student then has 15 minutes to get all their food, and if they spend more than 15 minutes their ID gets swiped a second time.
This policy is outrageous. There is absolutely no reason to have a time limit. Lines could be long, and 15 minutes may not be long enough for students to get the food they want. The only real argument for the time limit is to make sure that students are not taking too much food from Evert. However, I highly doubt that they will want extra dining room food. Evert has never been known for its quality, and most students agree.
Susquehanna needs to fund Dining Services more, increase the staff working, and start to make decisions based on the students’ wishes.