Students order food from The Fattened Caf located in the McKelvey building. (Axl Cedeno | Contributing Photographer)

When dinner time rolls around, most students in the College of Arts & Sciences turn to the dining halls or return home to cook themselves a meal. For students in the McKelvey School of Engineering and the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts working in a studio or study space, there is a lack of options. 

In response to the issue, Dining Services has launched a pilot program on the East End of campus to extend dining hours. The program’s goal is to decide what dining option should remain open for extended dinner hours. The Fattened Caf., which normally closes at 6 p.m., extended its hours until 8 p.m. during the week of Sept. 8-12. Beast Craft BBQ will have extended hours until 8 p.m. from Oct. 20-24, and LaJoy’s Coffee Cafe will have extended hours until 8 p.m. from Nov. 17-21. Normally, Beast Craft BBQ and LaJoy’s close at 3 p.m. 

Vice President of Programming for WashU’s Student Union (SU), senior Beni Bisimwa, helped to distribute a survey that received 375 responses and asked students about their eating habits, locations, times, and preferred meals. When asked if students would be more likely to eat on the East End of campus if restaurants stayed open past their typical times, 61% of respondents said they would be extremely likely to, and 30% said somewhat likely. 

“We got a lot of feedback regarding people’s dining habits, which weren’t aligned with current dining hours, especially over on the East End,” Bisimwa said. “Especially engineering students, as well as architecture students, they had issues with [dining hours], and they made it very, very, very clear with the survey responses.” 

Dining Services has been in collaboration with the SU in order to make this pilot happen, according to Director of Dining Services, Tiffany De La Roche. 

“Student Union had agreed during the [weeks with extended hours] that they would work with us this academic year to help do some programming tied with those dining operations,” De La Roche said. “[That] will really help us build up the traffic in those areas.” 

During The Fattened Caf’s extended hours, SU hosted a karaoke and trivia night with special guest Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs, Anna “Dr. G” Gonzalez. 

McKelvey student and junior Michael Lynn spends a lot of time on the East End, especially later in the day after most dining options close. Lynn said if he wanted to eat on campus, he would have to walk to Corner 17, but the options can get repetitive and boring. 

“I would have really appreciated The Fattened Caf being opened or Beast Craft because those are my favorite places,” Lynn said. “And they were right next to the place where I was doing all my work.” 

Vendors on the East End also expressed interest in potentially pursuing later hours, according to De La Roche. The dining partners want to remain open based on the service needs, but De La Roche said that Dining Services wanted to ensure the restaurants would actually get foot traffic. 

“Obviously, with a small restaurant, there [are] a lot of expenses that are tied to it, so we wanted to make sure that this would be lucrative for them, but also that it would be something that students could enjoy,” De La Roche said.

According to De La Roche, the program aims to look at the volume of students on the East End during these extended hours and which locations they were drawn to. She wondered how far students were willing to travel to get their meals later in the day.

Raven Lumpkins, Director of Marketing and Communication for the Office of Operations and University Services, said Dining Services is aware of the interest, but they don’t yet have the student foot traffic data to make a decision. The pilot program will help determine the best course of action for both students and retail partners. 

“While we want to open everything and just leave it open, we really need to get down to the fine print of the data, so that way we open the right thing that is lucrative for our retail partners and that works for the students,” Lumpkins said. “We would love, in an ideal world, to just have them all available to you, but it makes us actually ask the critical questions and make sure we’re really meeting the need.”

Lumpkins said she is excited about the pilot program and how it will better support WashU students. 

“I don’t think people aren’t happy with what’s available there, it’s just when it’s available,” Lumpkins said. “And so that gets me excited that you’re not mad about the menu, you’re not mad about those things, you’re happy that they’re there,” Lumpkins said. 

Lynn said the option of extended dining hours would help the East End feel less isolated.

“I would overall enjoy my time much more on the East End, and I would be able to enjoy it for longer amounts of time,” Lynn said. “I would be able to comfortably be down there while it’s 5 o’clock, and I’m sure more people would be down there, which would make it more of a community and more exciting.”