ETSU Dining Services has re-selected Aramark as its vendor in a brand new 10-year contract.
“In a panel, the university grades each contractor by a point system. It’s a conglomerate effort. Everybody chooses the vendor that they think has the best offer to meet the goals of this university,” explained Andrea Crawford, dining services Marketing Manager. While the vendor will remain the same for the next decade, Crawford explained that students can expect to see some major changes.
“We are making plans to give ETSU Dining Services a little bit of a facelift,” Crawford stated. This “facelift” is more like full-out reconstructional surgery, including noticeable changes in floor plans of the Atrium, the Marketplace and the Cave.
The Atrium will be renovated to include Mexican cuisine from Zoca’s and an expanded Chick-fil-A. The Atrium will be opened up to foster a more spacious atmosphere and to include more seating for dine-in students.
“One of students’ biggest concerns was speed of service,” explained Lisa Blackburn, senior district marketing manager of dining services. Next school year, each individual food station in the Atrium will be complete with a cash register so students can pay where they eat.
Blackburn hopes that this will remedy the bottlenecking effect that occurs at the few registers in the Atrium during peak meal times.
The Cave will house three venues – Java City, a barbeque restaurant and AFC Asian Express. Renovations in the Cave also include the addition of what Blackburn refers to as “soft seating,” areas that foster a comfortable studying space to maximize students’ multitasking abilities.
Plans are to remove the tiered dining area in the Marketplace and make the entire cafeteria one level. The pizza station in the Marketplace, currently located in the back of the cafeteria, will fill this space. The new pizza station will be furnished with bar stools for an authentic “pizzeria feel.”.
The major renovations don’t stop at the D.P. Culp Center. ETSU Dining Services is going one step further in collaboration with ETSU housing to bring the food to the students with the addition of a café-meets-convenience store to be built within ETSU’s Centennial Hall.
The store will provide hot meals and other food items, and a “living room” space where students can relax and recharge.
The changes are not just in the construction. Students with dietary concerns or issues such as food allergies and diabetes will benefit from the introduction of icons for healthy eating. These icons will make it easier for students to know which foods are safe for their consumption and which contain certain materials that could be harmful for them, such as peanuts or gluten.
Many of these decisions are results of 1,200 surveys and five focus groups, from which ETSU Dining Services received students’ suggestions. “This is all student-driven,” Blackburn stated.
The major themes of these changes center around convenience and expansion of dining/studying space.

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