The Daily Campus

Issue date: 4/17/08 Section: Focus

Media Credit: Matt Lin Students peruse through the Millie and Maude's Grab & Go, located in South Campus. Millie and Maude's sports a 50s atmosphere and personal pizzas after 8 p.m.

As students reach the end of the semester, they might not always have time to sit down for a decent meal with friends or alone. Sometimes, students want to have a wrap, sandwich, salad or snack in their rooms or at any place of solace while studying for finals.

"Students have busy lives," said Denise G. Beal, Assistant Director for Residential Dining. "It's nice to be able to take something to eat on the run, during class or when studying later at night."

Grab & Gos are UConn's solution for dining flexibility. Convenient places on campus that provide nourishment in the form of snacks, sodas, sandwiches, salads and wraps for the busy college student.

"Grab & Gos started because student customers needed the flexibility for meals on the run," Beal said.

Usually located within or in close proximity to dining halls, students may use either points or flex passes from their meal plan to pay for a meal at Grab & Go.

Meals usually consist of a fountain drink, a wrap or sandwich, a piece of fruit and a choice of a salad or desert item such as a cookie or brownie. However, different sometimes Grab & Gos offer different, options when it comes to snacks and have different service quality to their customers.

"Everybody's friendly, the bosses and employees are friendly," said Lauren Marker, an 8th-semester nursing major. "I think they're kind of complying to student lifestyle. When I was a freshman, it was different."

That is true considering in the Fall 2005 semester that the meal plan was changed to include flex passes that would fit with student lifestyle and also allowed guests to have meals.

"We wanted to allow students anytime access into the board plan operations. The flex pass was born when we knew we also needed to provide for meals for guests and meals to go," said Beal. "We designed a Value Meal with pricing equivalent to the raw food cost of a dining hall meal. The final change in the meal plan choices were varying values of points for use in the retail operations on campus."

Continued...

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