Located in the Engineering Student Centre (ESC), the ESC Eatery has been open on campus since September. Currently, the Eatery is open every week from 11 a.m. until 2 p.m. on Tuesdays to Thursdays. However, there are plans to hopefully expand the times in the near future.
“Our philosophy when operating the Eatery is to provide students with quick snacks and light meals, like sandwiches, to provide them maybe a more affordable option than they can find in other areas on campus,” said Mark Bancroft, the director of the Eatery. “We kind of operate it as a service where our main goal is providing the best prices to students.”
There are a wide variety of casual options available such as different types of sandwiches, chips, coffee and tea.
“From our discussions with the AMS recently, it looks like we have a lot more potential to offer more hours, but that is going to be based on our volunteer schedule and based on just time-commitment largely,” said Jeanie Malone, the current president of the Engineering Undergraduate Society.
Natasha Carriere, a fifth-year geological engineering student, is one of the volunteers at the eatery.
“There have been a few smaller changes. We’ve brought in some different snack things,” said Carriere. “[The AMS is] looking into the feedback and we do get to track it through our system, so it’s also a matter of how much time they have to analyze the demand versus order.”
Malone and Bancroft echoed that same sentiment in regards to what students can expect from the Eatery in the future.
“It’s a bit of a balancing act and testing things slowly. For December, we’ve tested out butter tarts and added more to our [pastries],” said Malone.
“It’s [constantly] finding the right balance between products in most demand and that sort of thing,” said Bancroft.