The overflow seating area adjoining the Knorr Dining Room has been closed since spring break due to storage needs for food service provider Bon Appétit while the new Searle Center is constructed.
“It’s a temporary closure while they’re doing construction at the Dow,” Bon Appétit General Manager David Apthorpe said.
Most of what is being stored in the overflow room is catering equipment that had been stored in the kitchen facilities in the Dow Leadership Center. Once the construction project is completed, Bon Appétit will have a brand-new kitchen facility for their catering.
“There’s significant demolition that’s going on right now,” Apthorpe said. “We expect all new equipment, so it’s really going to be a state of the art kitchen for the six to eight hundred people it’s going to hold. So it’s very exciting, but this is kind of the growing pains part.”
Because of the space reduction, students have been struggling to find seats in Knorr. Senior Cody Jessup recounted a recent lunch experience where he and a friend couldn’t find any empty tables, so had to get creative.
“We had to resort to using the table where the workers who wipe down the tables keep their supplies,” Jessup said.
According to Jessup, the two neatly stacked the cleaning supplies in the corner and pulled extra chairs down from the back corner of the dining hall.
Junior Ellen Hogan said she shares a similar frustration.
“Finding a place to sit in the dining hall has been harder lately,” Hogan said. “Students sprint across the room to snag a booth or even for a small section of a long table. It seems that it has become more difficult every year to simply find a place to sit. Having the overflow room closed doesn’t help matters.”
Apthorpe said they have been trying to deal with the space issue, but they are having storage problems.
“One of the issues that we’re running into is that the college doesn’t have space,” Apthorpe said. “One of the thoughts we had was to put more chairs around the table, but there’s just not physical space to move the chairs that are in existence.”
He emphasized that this is a temporary inconvenience, and he said all should be back to normal come fall.
“We’re just excited,” Apthorpe said. “We’re looking at the end result, and unfortunately, this is just kind of an inconvenience for all parties.”
