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The Commons Dining Center, the cafeteria in the Commons basement serving residents of Texas A&M's Southside dormitories, will permanently close at the end of August.
A temporary establishment, the Commons Food Court, will open on the first floor of the Commons building Aug. 22.
A committee of five students and three faculty members will brainstorm ideas for long-term plans for Southside dining in September, said Student Body President Jack Hildebrand.
"We can have a very impressive facility that will have all Southside students dining there," Hildebrand said.
Rick Floyd, executive associate vice president for finance, said an acceptable long-term solution for Southside dining has not been developed yet.
"We've tried to come up with a good interim solution that will allow us to reduce our losses and that will give us an opportunity to see how the students accept the new concepts," Floyd said.
Hildebrand said the temporary food court is not a good long-term solution because it cannot accommodate enough students.
The Commons Food Court, which cost $50,000 to create, will be on the first floor of the Commons building.
Commons Xpress will offer the food formerly served in Commons Dining Center, including hot entrees, side dishes, salads and cookies.
A coffee bar, Common Grounds, will be open 7 a.m. to midnight.
"(Common Grounds is) a really super coffee kiosk-type operation, kind of a miniature of what you might see at Poor Yorick's (Coffee House)," said Ron Beard, executive director of food services.
Mexican food will be served from Olla Roja, which also operates at the MSC 12th Man International cafeteria.
The current establishments on the first floor, Stone Willy's pizza, Chick-fil-A and Common Denominator Grill & Deli, will remain in operation.
The changes are taking place because the number of students eating at the dining center was decreasing, and it has been running a deficit for the past three years, Beard said.
Beard said that only two out of 10 Southside residents regularly eat at the dining center, while five out of 10 consistently eat the "fast food" upstairs. Three out of 10 eat their meals elsewhere on campus, including Sbisa and the Memorial Student Center, he said. Beard said the number of students eating breakfast at the Commons Dining Center dropped from 900 students before 2001 to 450 students in the past two years.
The number of students eating lunch or dinner dropped from 1,700 students before 2001 to 700 in the past two years.
Beard said that a Southside student forum in March 2003 and surveys showed that students value grab-and-go food and convenience more than an all-you-can-eat cafeteria.
Southside students want a food court similar to the Underground, which is located near the Northside dormitories, Beard said.
Fire safety codes also contributed to the decision to move upstairs, Floyd said.
It would have cost $16 million, more than it cost to renovate Sbisa, to redo the Commons Dining Center, Floyd said.
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