Popular restaurants will remain on campus

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By Nick Gray

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Chick Fil-A, Starbucks, Panda Express, Ovid’s and other campus favorites are in UK Dining’s plans for the future and will remain on campus, UK Dining marketing manager Charity Bradley told the Kernel on Wednesday.

Bradley said that the newly announced restaurants around campus, such as Einstein Bros. Bagels and Rising Roll Gourmet, will be added to the selection, and none of the nationally known brands in and around campus will be removed.

“We had access to student surveys, so we have as much invested into the national brands as the students are,” Bradley said.

Changes have already been made to the student center, which will begin renovations by 2016 that will be complete by January 2018. The renovation plans are in the design phase currently, according to the student center website.

The list of restaurants inside the newly renovated student center has not been finalized, though all five of the nationally-known restaurants (Chick Fil-A, Subway, Starbucks, Panda Express and Sbarro) have been on every preliminary list throughout the process, Bradley said.

Current changes to the student center include changing Say Cheese into Greens to Go, a eatery that will primarily serve salads, along with cutting Sbarro into half and adding a Subway alongside it. There also is a Subway Cafe added into the King Library.

Meal swipe locations will not change for existing places.

“The locations are the same, and we’re referring to meal swipes that aren’t at Blazer or Commons as ‘Wildcat Deals,’” Bradley said.

She said the plan is for Starbucks to be moved into another spot in the William T. Young library, where it will be easier to access for the students. Currently, Starbucks cannot be accessed from inside the library.

All C-Stores will be renovated and rebranded as Wildcat Pantry, with the C-Store in Blazer Hall to be closed.

Two restaurants — Aqua Sushi and Panera Bread Co. — will be on campus in Fall 2015 inside the New Commons, which has yet to be built.

The rapid changes in dining have come in the two months since Aramark and the university struck a $245 million deal over the next ten years to give Aramark control of UK dining.

“We are excited to see the changes take place and communicate to the students what we are adding to UK Dining,” Bradley said. “There’s so much we love about campus dining, but there’s a lot of things we know we can add to help the quality of campus.”