David Moronitit - dof@rha.gatech.edu
There are plans to construct a new dining hall on the ground floor of North Avenue North. RHA's student representative is the only student on the committee and he is working hard to represent the views of the entire resident community at Tech. We recently sent a survey to a randomly selected 1000 residents to gauge feedback on a few issues:
- 24 hour dining it's mechanism,
- Impact and relocation of current retail,
- Impact on residents during construction of the dining hall.
We also had a lot of write in comments about the pricing structure of the new dining hall. We'll be looking into what will best serve residents in the North Avenue location and bring that issue to the planning table.
Frequently Asked Questions
Some questions keep coming up when we solicit opinion from residents about this issue. It's best to be knowledgeable on the facts before learning about what is being considered.
Why are there plans to build a new dining hall when Brittain is so close to NAA?
Brittain is currently way over capacity and struggles to serve as many meals per day that it does. Quality suffers because of overcapacity and many problems can be addressed by shifting some demand over to a new dining hall. The new dining hall is not meant to avoid a walk across north ave but only address capacity.
What will the food service be like?
GT dining has been researching the latest serving methods and are planning on implementing a new way of serving food. Instead of preparing items in a back kitchen most food will be prepared as you wait in front of you fresh. There will be different themed sections with different types of food scattered throughout the whole dining hall with seating mixed into the food service.
What is happening to Wingnuts?!?!
The plan for the dining hall requires the space that Wingnuts currently inhabits. We will be working with the administration to make sure the service that Wingnuts provides is continued to be offered or expanded upon.
Will only North Ave./upperclassmen residents get to eat there?
This is still a pending question. We are concerned about overcrowding at the new dining hall so the access may be different.
If you have any other questions feel free to email president@rha.gatech.edu and you will get a response.
Impressions from the survey and our plans moving forward
The survey put some data into what we had suspected from talking with residents. We're working on a few things and moving forward with resident opinions on these issues.
Wingnuts and the late night option
The service that Wingnuts provides is very important to residents. We currenlty use it for a late night food supply when nothing else is open. We're working to keep late night options open during the construction phase of a new dining hall and making sure the needs of residents are met long term.
24 hour dining
The plans for the dining hall include a collapsible design so it can stay open overnight for small amounts of business. Woodruff and Brittain are designed to be open and running or closed completely, this does not make it cost effective for them to be open 24 hours. We asked what food service format residents would most like for a 24 hour dining option and found that most students like the buzzbuy system, fewer like traditional dining and the fewest would want delivery. We'll recommend to GT Dining that the successful buzzbuy system be expanded to cover all hours and also keep a part of the NAA dining hall open for at least late nights.
Pay structures
The two dining halls currently accept meal plans or cash for entry and then they are all you can eat. This contrasts with the student center structure that just charges for the food you buy. Most residents we've talked to (we didn't put this question in the survey) have supported a student center pricing structure and the "Ramblin" meal plans instead of the traditional all you can eat meal plans. This surprised us so we'll do more research and then present this to the administration.
