Vines Center food court closes
Lack of student interest has caused the Vines Center food court to officially shut down, according to Liberty University Chancellor Jerry Falwell Jr.
Vines Center — Few students took advantage of the food court during its last days. Photo credit: Ruth Bibby
According to Lee Beaumont, director of auxiliary services at Liberty, the college began losing money after Founder’s Food Court vendors initially moved over to the Vines Center last year. The amount of revenue the operation was making dropped significantly, Beaumont said.
“It’s no different than anything else. You want things to stand on their own operationally. The students just weren’t utilizing it,” Beaumont said.
Student workers at the Vines Center food courts also said that area was not receiving as much traffic as Founder’s Food Court had.
“At Vines, we had our little rushes in between classes and after convo, but we did nowhere near as much business as at Founders or the Hangar,” student worker and Liberty senior Rebecca Wiltshire said.
Sodexo, Liberty’s dining services provider, and the administration are doing all that they can in order to make the quality and quantity of food options on campus satisfactory for students, Beaumont said.
To replace the loss of this food court, more dining services will be added around campus in the following years, Beaumont said. After seeing the success of the Tilley Student Center food operations, the administration decided to place more food options in this location. Over the summer, the Tilley will undergo construction to host a new Chick-fil-A.
“We thought it would be best to do it over summer so we don’t displace people,” Beaumont said.
In order to put the Chick-fil-A in the Tilley, the reserve officer training corps (ROTC) offices and some Student Activities space will have to be relocated. ROTC will be placed in the current spinning room across from Liberty’s postal services in Green Hall, Beaumont said.
“It’s like dominoes whenever you do this. You have to construct new areas so you can move the people in the existing areas out,” Beaumont said.
After all of the construction and moving is complete, though, a few new food courts will be present across the campus. According to Beaumont, there will be food vendors in the new library as well as a second food court attached to DeMoss Hall.
Also, with the success of Chick-fil-A on campus, Beaumont said that the Liberty University administration and Chick-fil-A executives have been discussing the possibility of having a second location for students on main campus in addition to Tilley. The entire process for both main campus food courts, though, could take years, Beaumont said.
“We’re doing everything we can to offer a quality dining program here on campus,” Beaumont said.
According to Beaumont, there has not been any negative feedback about the Vines Center food courts being shut down so far. The administration welcomes suggestions to improve the quality of dining services for residential students and takes those suggestions into serious consideration, Beaumont said.
“Our desire is to service the student body as best we can and by doing so in a financially sustainable manner,” Beaumont said.