Too few customers, also Mensa closed
A new caterer has been running the university kitchens since January, but few people have tasted any of it yet. Because of the lockdown, only takeaway food could be ordered in the Mensa. That did not exactly open the floodgates, which is why the restaurant closed its doors.
“In the first few weeks of the year, only fifteen to twenty sandwiches a day were sold in the restaurant,” reveals Paul Hoeijmans, Director of Facility Services, “it doesn’t make sense to keep the restaurant open for that and to employ the people who work there.”
On Wednesday afternoon, around lunchtime, the campus is indeed very empty. But not completely deserted. For example, maintenance people, security, and also desk clerks in the library are still needed to keep things running. There are also students who make grateful use of the study opportunities in the library.
Student Sander de Dobbelaere says he visits the library three, four times a week. In the library’s coffee room, he eats lunch with a brought half a loaf of brown bread and a bowl of hummus. “I do miss eating in the Mensa, but the way it used to be. That you and a bunch of friends would go there together for lunch. The fact that you can’t take out now doesn’t bother me.”
Pancake with pieces of apple
Even the most urgently needed employees do not wander hungrily across campus. They bring lunch from home. Like librarian Frank van Oirschot. He also misses the social aspect of having lunch with colleagues in the Mensa. Now he eats by himself. Pancakes with pieces of apple, that goes without saying.
Paul Hoeijmans, meanwhile, promises that the Mensa will reopen when the lockdown is eased somewhat again. So that the university can really get to know the new caterer CIRFOOD and its more vegetarian options available.
Meanwhile, there are alternatives on the edges of campus, he reveals. For example, takeaway options and an Albert Heijn on the Professor de Moorplein. And for those who enjoy a lunch stop, “In the Warandebos, the Grotto is also still open for a sausage roll and take-out coffee.”
