This semester, Topper Eats has announced a large change to on-campus dining. The Grab and Goat in the St. André Apartments, popular for their to-go meals, snacks, candy, sushi and beverages, will now be closed on weekends but remain open on weekdays from 10 a.m. to 10:30 p.m.
They made this change based on student traffic and sales in all of the dining options. They found that there was too little activity in both the Grab and Goat and Meadows Coffeehouse on the weekends, making it difficult to cover the cost of keeping it open.
“Staffing, utilities and food operations add up, and when only a small number of people are shopping there, the store ends up operating at a loss,” Rebekah Desah, associate vice president of business services, said. “We knew that we needed to make an adjustment, and we wanted to minimize the negative impact as best we could while making the change that was necessary.”
The team realized they could not keep both stores open and had to shift services to where they are used most. To make this change as smooth as possible, they listened to student feedback from over the years and found that students want to preserve the hours of Meadows Coffeehouse more than the Grab and Goat, so they focused their weekend resources there to make sure it could stay open and meet students’ needs.
Even though the Grab and Goat is closed for service on the weekends, their newly renovated lounge space remains open 24/7 with the scanning of an SEU student card. They have chairs, couches and a microwave, giving the students a space to eat, study and hang out with friends..
This change may come as a shock to those who rely on the Grab and Goat for quick meal options, but Chartwells is working to ensure student needs are still met on the weekends. To make up for this closure, Meadows Coffeehouse has begun selling sushi on the weekends, as it is one of the most popular menu items in the Grab and Goat and is one of the main things they had that other dining options did not offer before. Meadows Coffeehouse also still carries a variety of to-go food, so it is a good fallback for students used to relying on meals and snacks from the Grab and Goat.