Dining choices at VCU set to expand

A Chili’s Grill & Bar on Cary Street and a Starbucks Coffee in the James Branch Cabell Library are among plans to feed the influx of students the new business and engineering buildings will produce.

Other plans include renovating Larrick Dining Center on the VCU Medical Center campus and bringing the New York-based sandwich shop Bleecker Street into the new engineering building.

Since the renovations of the University Student Commons about two years ago, restaurants such as Grille Works, on the upper-level of the Commons, and Quizno’s Subs, located in the VCU Bookstore, have been added.

VCU adds restaurants and mini-marts through an exclusive contract with Aramark, a national food services organization that uses its ties with different restaurants to add services to VCU. Subway, Quizno’s and the future Chili’s are products of Aramark’s ties, although the McDonald’s at the Medical Center campus has its own coordinator and operates independently.

“Aramark has quite a few brands in their stable, and sometimes if they don’t have (the restaurant), they make an effort to get it for us,” said Dan McDonald, assistant director of business services.

One example of a restaurant Aramark could not get for VCU is the sandwich shop Panera Bread, so Aramark selected Bleecker Street, which will be in the new engineering building scheduled to open in fall 2007.

Surveys are conducted to determine student preferences, said Dawn Mooney, VCU’s marketing and public relations coordinator.

“They tell us the priorities of what to add,” McDonald said.

Starbucks is an addition students wanted. The popular Seattle-based coffee shop will open in Cabell Library in February.

Other changes include demolishing the Larrick Dining Center on the medical campus and turning the space into a mini-food court. That facility is scheduled to open in August 2008.

Senior English major Dana Smook said she anticipates the new renovations.

“I think the renovation of Larrick is really exciting, especially for those living at Cabaniss,” Smook said. “Students need to know about these renovations.”

Smook looks forward to the new Starbucks in the library.

“The one they have there now is kind of lame, and real Starbucks coffee is much better,” she said.

With the eventual renovation of the School of Business, there also are plans to add a convenience store similar to the one in the Commons.

It’s no secret that the Commons’ prices are a tad high, but there is no shortage of customers at the mini-grocery store on the lower level of the Commons.

Adam Uddin, a senior political science and public relations major, still regularly shops at the Commons and has seen the evolution of products since his freshman year.

“I like the Commons because it is convenient and all-purpose,” he said, sitting in the Commons Caf