With the first week of the fall semester officially over, students have had a chance to try out what Sodexo has to offer in the Marketplace.
Freshmen living on campus are required to purchase a meal plan, which means they can eat in the Marketplace as many times a day as desired from 7 a.m. to midnight with a large variety of food to choose from.
Does the “new and improved” Marketplace measure up to the hype? Freshman Autumn Gillis believes it does.
“You can get your food made for you,” Gillis said. “You can make your own salad and there’s ice cream, which I only discovered a few days ago; that’s amazing. Basically, the amount of food they have to offer is amazing.”
Gillis is even impressed by the ice cream choices.
“Their lavender ice cream is the best,” she said. “I’ve only been here a week, and I pout when they don’t have it. They also sometimes have peanut butter, coffee and raspberry.”
Although she lives in Davis Apartments, which is equipped with a kitchenette, Gillis is satisfied with the required meal plan.
“I’m not the type to cook some big elaborate meal,” she said. “It is nice to have someone cook my meals for me. If I get hungry late at night, I can whip something up in my room; otherwise, I eat in the Marketplace.”
Freshman Tristan Best, who lives in Centennial Hall, agreed that it is nice to have someone else to cook for you, but the food does not meet his expectations.
“I don’t ever look forward to going in there,” he said. “I just go because I’ve already paid for it and it’s better than making food in my dorm or driving off campus.”
To Best, the Marketplace reminds him of a high school cafeteria.
“The burger was basically a carbon copy of the soy burger everyone avoided [in high school],” he said. “The chicken is almost always dry. The pizza is the only thing that I like and go back for more, but eating pizza everyday like I do gets old.”
Best does not believe the plan is great deal either.
“I did the math and 3,000 swipes a semester is bit of an overkill,” he said. “That is 10 swipes a day, so lower the cost of the meal plan by reducing those.”
Senior Jordan Smith does not have a meal plan, but she has eaten in the new Marketplace a few times since the opening as a Preview and Orientation Leader.
“I really liked it,” she said. “I thought they had more variety throughout. During Preview, the new students seemed satisfied and were not complaining about having to eat in there.”
However, she believes there are still a few things they could improve on.
“Getting through the lines were slower than normal, but they’re still learning how to accommodate our university,” she said. “Some people may want to go there really quickly in between classes, but I’m afraid the lines are making that a little more difficult.”
