At On the Oval, a food court on Centennial Campus, a majority of the restaurants close after 3 p.m., excluding Gravity Cafe. This food court provides a wide variety of options condensed into one location, such as Talley or The Atrium on main campus.
Five years ago, NC State Centennial Campus opened Wolf Ridge student apartments along with the first major dining location, the Oval. The Oval contains five different restaurants, with four of them having limited hours of 10:30a.m.-3p.m. Gravity Cafe opens from 3p.m.-10p.m. making it the only food option on Centennial that is open during dinner hours.
Jennifer Gilmore, director of marketing and communication, explained the university selected the specific, limited hours based on the population at Centennial during those times.
“The population starts out really small in the morning and peaks during the day, when you have more students, commuters and faculty dining around centennial campus,” Gilmore said. “Then the population drops dramatically when you go into the evening. That is why the Gravity Cafe accommodates people who are there, which is not very [a] large population.”
Gravity Cafe used to be called Newton’s Diner, providing a more generic menu to students. According to Shawn Hoch, associate director of NC State Dining, students requested a bigger variety of food from Newton’s Diner, and that led to the creation of Gravity Cafe.
“Their perception was that you have a lot of burgers and chicken tenders,” Hoch said. “A lot of customers were saying, ‘We really enjoy this but it gets old.’”
Although Gravity Cafe offers the only food service during certain times on Centennial Campus, Hoch mentioned it is the most economically efficient option based off the people who need food at that time. According to Hoch, creating endless choices at dining places without a real need would force meal plan prices to increase.
“[We] have to be responsible stewards of the university’s money and make sure we are keeping the cost down with student meal plans,” Hoch said. “Everything dining does is self-funded and funded by the department, so we want to make sure we are not increasing cost to the students.”
Before On the Oval, iCafe provided the main meal service for students on Centennial campus. iCafe served Chick-Fil-A and other grab-and-go items. According to Shawn Hoch, this was meant to be a temporary food service and only lasted about three years.
Besides the Oval, two other food locations of Centennial Campus accept dining dollars that are often overlooked, according to Hoch: the Terrace Dining Room located at the Lonnie Pool Golf Course, and the State Club Restaurant, located at the Park Alumni Center, serve lunch every weekday, along with Terrace Dining Room serving brunch on the weekends.
Both Gilmore and Hoch discussed that the university is always looking for feedback from students as well as ways to improve the university.
“We are only five years into this,” Gilmore said. “We are beginning to look into the next steps, and what are the things that we should be doing. How can we provide more variety?”
Hoch emphasized change and more dining options will arrive as Centennial Campus expands in the coming years.
“[Fitts-Woolard Hall] is opening in 2020, so there will be about 1500 new people residing,” Hoch said. “Each one of those things will impact the service on Centennial, and we will be conscious about those potentially new customers and who we can invest in them.”
