COMMENTARY: Patio Café renovation leaves lack of food options for summer

The University of Houston – Clear Lake (UHCL) Bookstore made an official change to Follett Higher Education Group after three decades of working with Barnes & Noble. This decision, coupled with the closure of the Patio Café for renovations, leaves a significant absence of food options on UHCL’s campus during the summer.

When Barnes & Noble was UHCL’s bookstore provider, there was a large assortment of snacks, candy, pastries, drinks and grab-and-go food items. With the recent switch from Barnes & Noble to the Follett Higher Education Group, these snacks are no longer available to purchase. Students, faculty and staff purchase various food items from the bookstore instead of eating at the Patio Café. Now they can no longer do that.

At the start of July, the Patio Café closed for renovations until early August. Arguments for the summer Patio Café renovation argue the changes are being made in order to accommodate the incoming Hunter Hall residents and the decrease of populations on campus during the summer semesters to be impacted by the closure as opposed to the fall and spring.

Other than the various vending machines around campus, the Hawk Energy Bar, located in the Campus Recreation and Wellness Center (CRWC), is the only place on campus where individuals can purchase non-vending machine food during the Patio Café closure. However, the only items available for purchase are smoothies, sandwiches, salads, soups, yogurt, fruit, pastries and a line of espresso drinks.

Students, staff and faculty alike have felt this change, and now must walk to the CRWC if they would like to eat on campus. Moreover, many students still have no idea that the Hawk Energy Bar exists. Ultimately, this lack of comparable, accessible food options shows how UHCL was simply not fully prepared to take on the Patio Café renovation.

Although the switch from Barnes & Noble to the Follett Higher Education Group was a decision made by the University of Houston System, UHCL’s bookstore could have still potentially kept its food items. The Follett Higher Education Group website details a “convenience food store” type shop with ready-to-go snacks and quick and easy meals.

Seeing as the bookstore was a top source of food on campus, this option could have been explored more seriously before permanently removing these products from the bookstore. This oversight further emphasizes the university not fully thinking out the Patio Café renovation.

While it is important to update the café in order to accommodate these new residents, the residence hall is not a new building we just learned about. The residence hall was outlined in UHCL’s 2017 Master Plan, giving the university more than enough time to come up with a renovation timeline that affected virtually no students, faculty and staff.

The current renovation falls in the middle of both school sessions, essentially affecting every student taking a face-to-face summer class this semester. Perhaps a plan could have been put in place to implement the renovation during the winter break, a time when there are no students on campus taking classes.

The Hawk Energy Bar is the only place on campus where individuals can purchase food during the Patio Café closure. Although the Hawk Energy Bar still has some food options, the reality of the situation is that it is located in the CRWC. Many summer classes take place in the Bayou and SSCB buildings, making it a 7 to 10-minute walk just to access a significantly smaller food menu. This walk can be even worse for individuals who happen to be in the Arbor or Delta buildings. Depending on where one is on campus, it may be easier to travel off-campus for food.

This summer, the campus is emptier, there are a lot fewer activities and students are leaving immediately after their classes because of the lack of food on campus. During the closure, UHCL could have implemented more effective alternatives. These alternatives could have included food kiosks around the atriums, more food trucks on campus and comparable food options in the CRWC Energy Bar.

UHCL was not fully prepared for the Patio Café renovation. At the end of the day, with a comprehensive plan to implement comparable food options, students would most likely have not felt a difference, and the campus would have been livelier as a result.