STATESMAN SOAPBOX: USU’s monopoly needs busting
USU has some prime real estate.
We’re up here on the hill, looking out over the rest of Logan, effectively cut off from the hustle and bustle of downtown.
Unfortunately, we’re also cut off from the food.
Like fast-food restaurants in airports or concessions in theaters and football stadiums, USU Food Services uses its advantage of an isolated customer base to jack up prices.
I don’t have proof, because I haven’t been keeping a record of the prices at the Hub, but I swear they just took a jump.
This is ridiculous. Food on campus already costs an exorbitant amount. A bottle of soda costs $1.39 at the Hub or $1.19 at the Quick Stop, but the same soda would cost maybe 80 cents to a dollar some place where there was competition for food prices.
A wrap from Hazel’s costs something like $4.89. Frankly, they don’t taste like $4.89. A personal pizza from Freschetta in the Hub costs upwards of $4, too. A Blazing Chicken Sandwich from the Grill is $3.09. Pretty much everything is overpriced. Burritos from Taco Time cost $4-5 or more.
What gives? Isn’t Food Services milking enough from the students at the Living and Learning Community, who have to eat at the Marketplace for $6 a meal? Is it unreasonable to make just enough profit off food sales to cover operation expenses and employee wages?
If there was a place where students could get off campus during the day, and access other restaurants and vendors not controlled by Food Services, I guarantee prices on campus would go down to stay competitive. It would be a matter of market dynamics. Any economics major will tell you that.
Unfortunately, there’s no good place to stick a bunch of cafes or sandwich shops where students could walk to for their lunch break. North of the main part of campus are fields and campus facilities for more than a mile. East is the Golden Toaster and neighborhoods. South is Highway 89 and beyond that a sharp drop to the Island. West of campus, the hill runs quickly down to more neighborhoods. No place for stores. The only restaurant anywhere near where students spend their day is Fredrico’s on 700 North.
The best way I can think of to drive prices down would be to arrange a boycott of all on-campus food. That would mean no buying from the Hub, the Junction, the Marketplace, the Quick Stop, the Skyroom or the Quadside Café. Every student planning on staying on campus for lunch would have to bring something from home. I bet a couple weeks of that would bring Food Services and its fixed prices to their knees.
But, considering the level of student activism on this campus, that’s less likely than Mike Gravel winning a presidential nomination.
I’m not done complaining.
Not only does the food at the Hub cost an unreasonable amount, it is often not what I would choose for lunch, were there a choice. The bagels at Hazel’s are nice, but nothing I couldn’t make myself if I had the time at home. If you’ve ever had a real, New-York style bagel, you’ll know what you’re missing when you eat at Hazel’s.
And those little pizza boxes sit next to signs asking you not to open them. You bet I’m going to open them. If I don’t check what I’m buying, I may get one single slice of burned pepperoni on my pizza. I don’t want that. I require an even distribution of pepperoni across my entire pizza.
And why does the Grill stop serving breakfast at 10:30 a.m.? It’s the best thing they serve at the Hub, after the prohibitively expensive Hogi Yogi sandwiches, which I only indulge in once or twice a semester. OK, three or four. Since pretty much all the Grill’s lunchtime items are now sold at Sunset Strips, there’s no reason the Grill shouldn’t be open to serve breakfast all day. Give me breakfast or give me a crappy, gray burger.
The wraps at the Quadside Café offer a nice occasional alternative, but they fall apart if you try to eat them.
What I’d like to see at the Hub: reasonable prices and breakfast all day; maybe a couple new places in there, if that were feasible. In any case, USU is using its isolated vantage point from atop the hill to bleed the students dry.
How capitalist of them.
-elizabeth.lawyer@aggiemail.usu.edu