Returning students at Grand Valley State University may have noticed some significant changes to campus dining locations this fall. To address these changes to the student body, Tom Minor and Deb Rambadt from campus dining talked with GVSU’s student senate during its general assembly meeting Thursday, Sept. 15.

One of the biggest changes on GVSU’s Allendale Campus is the renovation and expansion of Fresh Food Co.

Minor, director of campus dining, said the remodeling of Fresh added about 100 extra seats for diners at the location.

“The old Einstein’s space, we’re opening that when we do need the extra seating during our peak times,” he said. “We’re also thinking about making a space to use when bus groups come and we have the extra groups on campus.”

According to the slideshow presented by Rambadt and Minor, 14,030 people were served in Fresh during move-in week alone. Additionally, during the first week of classes, 12,034 people were served and 12,681 people were served during the second week of classes. On average, 1,845 people are served at Fresh Food Co. a day.

Other changes include new stir-fry options, all-day breakfast and a bigger salad bar. There are now more vegetarian options, too.

“We’ve got a better station now for vegetarians and that is kind of on the Fuel side,” Minor said. “Those counts have really gone up. We started thinking we’d serve 50 portions and we’re well up over 100 portions.

“We are getting a lot of folks that aren’t exactly looking for vegetarian (options) going over there because the food is enticing.”

Changes on the Pew Campus include the addition of Zoca and Ciao Pizza.

There were also changes made to campus dining’s meal plans. Rambadt, campus dining’s marketing director, said there is now a new “7-plus plan” for students who wanted more than five meals per week but wanted fewer than 10 meals a week.

“In the past, with weekly meal plans there was a three-meal per day limit, we increased that this year to four meals per day. Part of the reason we decided to do that is because we are serving late-night options in a bigger way this year. Late night is served at the Connection, Engrained and also in Kleiner seven days a week.”

Another popular addition to campus dining is a dietician. Now, students who have dietary restrictions or want help finding and eating healthy options on campus can work with the dietician.

“We’re going to continue to do some ‘ask the dietician’ events. Some of those will be in person (and) we’ll also do that virtually through social media,” Rambadt said.

“We’re going to expand some of the events that we’re doing in terms of health and wellness and providing more nutritional information and just resources to our students so they can make informed decisions about what they’re choosing to eat.”

Campus dining’s website, www.gvsufood.com lists restaurants, menus, hours and special events going on for everyone to find.

There is also a “Campusdish” mobile app which lets users view menus on their phone. Students can also track their balance of debit dollars through the app.