Campus Dining is maintaining the to-go and socially distanced format for campus restaurants into the fall semester but students will have a wider array of choices and hopefully an improved experience.
Campus favorites including Full Moon and Panera will make a return once the semester starts, along with expanded hours with the Hill Student Center being fully open, according to Brian Bowser, resident district manager of Campus Dining.
The issues students faced with slower service last year should be improved as well due to both the experience Dining had learning how to work under the new model and the expansion of hours of operations, particularly after 7 p.m., according to Bowser. However, much like restaurants around the country, Dining is operating amidst a labor and supply shortage as they reopen for the semester.
“You’ll notice as you go into every dining venue, we have signage up that says ‘we ask for a little bit of patience as we’re experiencing staffing issues and experiencing issues with product availability’,” Bowser said.
Seating indoors will be “severely limited” much like last year with 95 seats in the Commons according to Bowser. Other dining locations such as those inside McMahon Hall and the newly renovated Starbucks in Sterne Library also have limited seating. Masks are required to enter any campus dining facility but they can be removed during active eating and drinking while social distancing in accordance with UAB masking requirements.
In order to combat this limited seating, alternative seating has been expanded. Students can now eat in the courtyard between Gold and McMahon Hall and outside University Hall.
“There is no distancing policy for outside, so we’re really trying to leverage those outdoor dining spaces in those areas.”
Last year many students opted to eat inside their residence halls, personal vehicles and the larger rooms in academic buildings when classes were not being held in order to eat while social distancing. Bowser said Dining is working diligently with the university to identify more alternative indoor areas for students to have their meals.
“I think we’re going to see a lot of creativity as we all come back to campus,” Bowser said while discussing how students will be finding locations to eat and meet now that most of the campus community is fully returning. “The desire on all fronts from the university administration to our dining team is to be able to get back to some availability to reopen our facilities.”
Bowser said that because Dining has had a year of growing pains with service operations they are now able to bring back some student favorites to the Commons.
“We’ve been able to reopen and reimplement several different platforms, from our dessert bar to the ever-popular waffle station, reintroducing our full beverage line, bringing in Starbucks coffee into the commons venue and expanding our deli offerings,” said Bowser.
Variety is also a focus for the Commons in the upcoming year. This means more variety in the regular menu throughout the week as well as more themed events such as the steak nights and the yearly Oktoberfest.
Dining’s partnership with Grubhub has also expanded after around 47% of all retail transactions were done through the app over the course of last year. The fees for pick-up and delivery from campus locations have been reduced due to high demand if students use their student account on the app.
Campus dining will be slowly expanding their hours of operation until the fall semester officially begins on Aug. 23. As of Aug. 16, you can dine at Mein Bowl or either campus Starbucks. Einstein Bros. Bagels is also open in its new location in McMahon Hall this week. Starting Friday, Aug. 20, you can check out the newest additions to UAB, Slice of Life and Moe’s in McMahon Hall along with the reopening of Full Moon in the Hill.
The Den is expected to open Monday, Aug. 23 and Panera is expected to have a delayed open near the middle of the first week of classes due to supply shortages. It expected to be open by Sept. 1.
Sandella’s Flatbread Café and Jamba Juice in the Collat School of Business and The Grid in the Education and Engineering Complex will be closed until further notice. World of Wings is currently under renovation and Bowser said they hope to have it operational this semester.
Find the full list of dining locations and hours here.
