In the words of Willy Wonka…”The suspense is terrible… I hope it’ll last.”
As January 10, 2011 nears, we are counting down the days to the debut of the new Atrium food concepts. And like Wonka himself, we have a few tricks up our sleeves!
Stay tuned to find out how you can win a Golden Ticket to be one of the first students to experience the marvelous TASTES that will await YOU inside the new Atrium!
Photo by: Michael Schore
Did you know that the Brickyard, officially NC State’s University Plaza, was designed after St. Mark’s Square located in Venice, Italy? St. Mark’s Square or Piazza San Marco has been called “the drawing room of Europe.” According to history, it’s one of the few urban spaces in Europe where human voices are heard over the sounds of motorized traffic.
With campus events, religious speakers and nearby Hillsborough Street, our own piazza has been the “drawing room” of NC State since its completion in 1969. Prior to the brick, according to N.C. State Magazine, the plaza was covered in grass and mud. Chancellor John C. Caldwell along with Carroll Mann, then director of facilities planning, were convinced that a landscape architecture plan “would effectively . . . unify the campus and permeate it with a university atmosphere.”
Boy were they right! Today, the Brickyard is a NC State landmark where university traditions are carried out each year.
In commemoration of this symbol and the tie to Italy’s St. Mark’s Square, University Dining fittingly named our Atrium Italian concept “Brickyard Pizza and Pasta.” And now, as January nears, the menu can be revealed.
Pizza selections will remain the same as before, save a new crust, with a variety of toppings to choose from. Why mess with a good thing, right?
What’s on the Menu: Pepperoni, Cheese, Meat Lovers, Veggie, and Supreme
Pasta dishes will rotate daily to give students a unique option each day. To soak up the savory sauces, choose from bread sticks or garlic toast.
What’s on the Menu: We are still finalizing the details, but as it stands, we plan to serve a rotation of Chicken Alfredo with Cavatelli Noodles, Baked Ziti, Mushroom Ravioli with Chicken in a Vodka Cream Sauce, Sausage and Tortellini in a Smoked Gouda Sauce, and Chicken Cacciatore with Penne Pasta.
A Line Just for You Chick-fil-A Lovers
The new Atrium is starting to take shape, and the most noticeable progress is coming in our new Chick-fil-A space. It has its own special queue to channel students toward this beloved destination, which will feature not one, but two counters to keep the goodness flowing during peak times, and four fryers to keep up with the demand for waffle fries.
I confirmed today that our new Chick-fil-A will feature the spicy chicken sandwich, something that should make a lot of people happy.
We were thinking: what can we do to celebrate the return of the waffle fry and the debut of the spicy chicken sandwich on our campus? Should we have a competition for who’s first in line for them? Who gets the first sleeve of crispy chips? I’d love some feedback, and since we are getting at least 1000 hits a week, those of you who are reading must care. So tell me: what do you think?
Two counters!
Wolf Xpress Print and Copy Center, formerly known as the University Graphics Copy Center, is relocating from the main bookstore to the new Atrium! Everyone will now have a convenient copy center in the heart of campus. Wolf Xpress will open in its new location, to the left of the main food court entrance, by January 10, 2011.
Plans originally called for the North Campus Bookstore to occupy the space, but since the main bookstore will relocate to the lower level of Harrelson for the next four years while the student center is renovated and expanded, it made more sense to use the space for WolfXpress Copy.
Wolf Xpress has many options for printing at NC State–like the brand new Espresso Book Machine (EBM), which enables students, faculty, staff, and campus visitors to print library-quality paperback books on-site in minutes. Other products and services include:
Future Home of Wolf Xpress
All these options are available at affordable prices. Now students can place an order online, pick it up, and get a Chick-fil-A sandwich all in one convenient location–the new Atrium!
On Friday, several of us at University Dining made a trip to Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Va., to check out some new foodservice venues they recently opened to get some ideas of what we’d like to do in the new Talley Student Center and on Centennial Campus.
Our first stop was Jonah’s, a Culinary Emporium, which offered a variety of choices: carved turkey, pizza, lasagna, rotisserie chicken, burgers, salads and more. It also had a built-in C-Store with mostly food items, a grab-and-go section, and fresh produce. The produce looked pretty, but I asked how much of it is actually purchased. Turns out to be very little, but they pull from it for their menu creations which means that nothing goes bad. How green of them!
We were very impressed with the offerings, from the brick-oven pizzas (wish we could have one of those in the new Atrium, but NO FIRE IN THE LIBRARY!!, plus not enough space) to the plated items. They had a turbo oven that enabled them to quickly heat items instead of keeping it hot all the time (thus drying it out and creating waste if it sits too long).
The bakery case was hard to resist, but I had to ask: would our students pay $2.99 for a dessert? A challenge on college campuses is to provide great food at an affordable price…we have a lot of students paying their way (and trying to be good stewards of mom and dad’s money), so it’s a delicate balance.
Next, we visited Market 810, which also had marketplace-style “mini-restaurants.” It had about six stations. Through their meal exchange program (similar to our equivalency) you could exchange two meals for something extra special…on this particular day, they had crab legs. Holy mackerel!
I particularly enjoyed the comment wall…students were invited to comment in a public place, and the manager would reply, often with an entertaining response. It was comforting to know that, even in the nicest of dining locations, students still found things to comment on…anyway, I digress…
When the Atrium Food Court opens, it will be NC State’s first glimpse into the type of foodservice we are moving toward as we plan for Talley Student Center and new dining facilities on Centennial Campus. I know it’s a hassle to eat in a bubble, stand in long lines in a temporary serving area, and…here comes the worst part: do without Waffle Fries for a semester, but I promise you: it will all be worth it. Check out the photos on our Facebook page as this is the caliber of foodservice we have in store for NC State.
We hope you are counting down the days to the opening of the new Atrium concepts in January. Check out the renderings on the wall in the temporary Atrium serving area and online!
In January 2011, the two sides of the Atrium will flip flop. The left side, the serving area, will be open for service and the right side will close to be transformed into the new seating area. The application of modern colors, furniture, flooring and lighting in the Atrium will bring new life to the Brickyard eatery.
Atrium Food Court Architects, Moser, Mayer & Phoenix Architects, PA and The Baker Group, are working diligently to complete the left side of the Atrium renovation, which will include the new serving area and new food concepts, including Asian/sushi, pizza/pasta, custom salads, and wraps. Chick-fil-A will be the centerpiece of the new serving area, and the waffle fries will return at last!
Carefully strolling through this week in a hard hat, I could see the layout of the new serving area is beginning to take shape! The new layout will guide students swiftly through the serving area during high volume times from their food choice directly to the register and into the seating area (the seating area will open in August 2011).
Over the next few months, the Atrium will morph into reality. Until then, check out the pictures below for a sneak peek of the construction. Atrium slide show
Freshens has officially joined the food court lineup in Talley Student Center. Along the Cates Avenue side in the seating area, you can find fresh smoothies and frozen yogurt served in a variety of flavors and topped with favorites like granola, berries, and candy.
The three-day Freshens Grand Opening Celebration in Talley Student Center began Tuesday morning with a Facebook VIP Event. More than 1,300 customers RSVP’d to the event, but only the first 100 in attendance were eligible. One-hundred free smoothies were distributed before 12:00 p.m., with most customers ordering their smoothie of choice on the spot.
Freshens Grand Opening Festivities continue Wednesday and Thursday with free samples and coupons. The Fresh
ens Banana Mascot will also be in attendance, welcoming patrons to the new location. Students, faculty and staff can come by and receive a coupon for a free topping with a yogurt purchase.
Relocation from the Atrium Food Court
Freshens has permanently relocated to Talley from the Atrium Food Court. The new Atrium will emphasize Fresh Food Fast, and with Freshens option of customizing smoothies and yogurt, the line can get lengthy. The new location in Talley can better accommodate this healthy and delicious option. Hours of operation will be 10:30 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. Monday-Thursday, 10:30 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. on Friday, and closed Saturday and Sunday.
It’s been two weeks since the Atrium temporary serving area opened, and we want to thank everyone for their patience as we’ve worked out the kinks associated with operating a new space that is unavoidably too small to accommodate the number of hungry patrons we serve each day. Things are different…very different, from the fries to the wrap station to the seating.
We often gauge our success and failures on the variety of customer service-related email we receive on any given day. Fortunately, it’s not a lot, and while we may not always like what we read, there is always something to be learned and an opportunity to improve. Through customer emails, we were able to make some adjustments at both Lil’ Dino’s and the Wrap Bar to better accommodate our students.
Other times, customer email gives us an opportunity to educate and clarify. This week, for example, we received an email asking why we don’t do refills at the Atrium (and, for that matter, Talley), and why we charge for extra containers of Chick-fil-A sauce. Perhaps this is a question that many students have, so I will share the answers here:
At a traditional Chick-fil-A, the sauces are kept behind the counter. Most customers are content with just two containers of sauce per meal item (the standard given to customers both at the counter and the drive-through window), and if someone wants more, they have to go to the trouble to ask for the sauce. Therefore, traditional Chick-fil-A’s do not experience a significant additional cost associated with providing an extra container here or there.
Our location, on the other hand, is not set up that way. We have never had an optimal space to be able to keep such things behind the counter and dispense
them properly. Our hard cost on those containers is 26 cents, so if an inordinate number of patrons chose to take 3, 4 or even 5 per item, it adds up much faster for us than it does a traditional Chick-fil-A. Asking patrons to pay for the third container makes them think twice about taking sauce that they may or may not use.
The policy on refills is very similar. At the Atrium, you would have to pass through the cash register area to get a refill, then pass back through to go back to your seat, meaning that the cash register attendant would have to stop and determine whether or not your drink is a new purchase or a refill, which would be impossible given the amount of people trying to pass in and out of the space every day. In addition, allowing refills would make it possible for patrons to travel around the campus all day with the same cup, refilling on a regular basis.
A healthy operation places an emphasis on controlling costs, so if we did not have these sorts of policies we have no choice but to a) charge more per meal or b) significantly increase the cost of meal plans. Neither of those options is in the best interest of students.
Do you have questions or suggestions for dining? We would love to hear them. Email us at University Dining.
If you’ve taken your lunch break lately at the Atrium, chances are you were expecting to find Chick-fil-A’s iconic waffle fries.
The crispy, golden-brown goodness of Chick-fil-A’s waffle fries will not return until January. But why?
Chick-fil-A’s strict operational requirements dictate that the fryer can not be located more than 20 feet from the serving area. Currently, the kitchen and prep areas for the Atrium restaurants are located about 50 feet away from the serving area. 
Waffle fries will return in January, when the new Atrium concept debuts. As a matter of fact, the new Chick-fil-A will be twice the size of the old space and feature four fryers to keep up with the demand!
Although, waffle fries will be temporarily unavailable, there is a tasty fry alternative available. Check out the new fry station located in between the Wrap Bar and the Chick-fil-A serving areas. The alternative may not be waffle-shaped, but they still have the potato goodness you expect from a fry in every bite.
The Atrium is NOW SERVING! The temporary serving area located on the right side of the Atrium opened Monday at 7:30 a.m. Now serving Chick-fil-A, a variety of fresh pre-made wraps, and Li’l Dinos subs and salads, students can grab a bite and sit and eat in the air-conditioned Brickyard Bubble.
Patrons will have access to the Atrium Dining Hall from 7:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. on weekdays, except during University breaks. The Brickyard Bubble, the temporary seating area, will also be open daily during these hours.
Updates on the Renovation
Freshens Smoothies and Yogurt is expected to open after Labor Day in September. Freshens will be celebrating the relocation with grand-opening festivities, including free tastings and coupons. If you’re in the Brickyard craving a frozen treat, stop by the Creamery serving Howling Cow Ice Cream, inside D.H. Library.
Atrium and Brickyard Slideshow