Kimmel Food Court should remain open, use student input for improvement

Kimmel Food Court should not close. Instead, the dining hub should take student input into consideration to recover from slow business.

Two new eateries, Trio’s and Queso’s, were added to Kimmel Food Court last fall, replacing staples Burger King and Taco Bell. It has only been one year since these changes were made, which makes it difficult to gauge their success.

This is just one of many reasons to doubt if it is the right decision to close the food center.

The dining center has been criticized for its lack of chain restaurants since Taco Bell and Burger King were removed in 2012. Students have blamed the removal of these establishments for the decrease in business.

However, this has not been cited as the main reason for lack of traffic, according to SU’s auxiliary services.

Rather than close Kimmel, Food Services should focus on reinventing the dining center to become more popular on campus.

University officials should employ a polling system to ask students what they think needs to improve within Kimmel.

A polling system would allow for student input, which could help answer the question of why there has been a decline in student business in the dining center, or if there are other underlying problems within the venue.

Introducing longer operating hours would allow students to make the dining center a part of their everyday eating schedule, rather than just a late-night destination during the weekend.

Either way, closing Kimmel and replacing it with another dining option elsewhere on campus will cost money.

University officials will have to manage the costs of closing Kimmel and expanding the dining portion of Schine, the most feasible location to hold a replacement eating center.

But such renovations to the Schine food court seem unnecessary, since there are plenty of late-night choices in the area. For instance, many students head to Marshall Street if they are in need of post-party snacks.

Because of this, it makes more sense for the university to build off what it has in Kimmel Food Court rather than creating something entirely new.

SU students love salty and greasy foods, especially in the wee hours of the morning — GrubHub.com released data in August saying SU students order more late-night food than any students from any other college in America.

Kimmel is a staple of students’ late-night, weekend-dining lifestyle. They should not be deprived this classic college experience.