Dear AU community, 

As the fall semester ends, we are writing to you with an update on our progress improving the dining program. Over the past few months, we’ve fully opened our new retail venues in the Mary Graydon Center (MGC) and the Tunnel and honed their operations based on the community's feedback. Thank you to everyone who sent us a note, text, stopped by, and completed our café furniture pilot survey.

Based on your feedback, we added Grubhub order-ahead and quick-order functionalities at Panera to better inform and serve customers, adjusted products available at our Eagle Express and East Campus Markets, and added favorite items more frequently to our meal exchange rotations.   Based on your pilot café furniture survey responses, we are working with our campus partners in Student Affairs and Planning and Project Management to purchase additional furniture for the café space in front of Panera and move some pieces, such as the co-working booths, to better locations on the first floor of MGC. We have also adjusted our furniture acquisition plan for the Terrace Dining Room (TDR) and MGC third-floor renovations, as we have learned that our community prefers seating areas that enable social gatherings and support multiple kinds of uses including working, studying, and eating.   

We are excited for the spring semester, as we anticipate opening a new Faculty and Staff University Club in the Tunnel, continuing phase one renovation work in TDR, and building upon our new Eagle Made products program. Work on the University Club space began this past week, and we are currently featuring the first four alumni-made products in the Eagle Express and East Campus Markets. Our alumni vendors include Hummus Goodness, MarnaRoons, Snacklins, and Virdian Tea.   

When you return in the new year, we will update the community on our progress on these important projects and provide additional details on our spring operations. As a reminder, the Dining Program’s fall operations end on Friday, December 15. You can find additional information about our dining operations at https://dineoncampus.com/au and on the TDR renovation at https://www.aukitchentdr.com/.   

We invite the AU community to contact us at mealplans@american.edu with questions or comments and wish everyone a wonderful holiday season and winter break!   

Onward we go, together!

Bronté Burleigh-Jones
Chief Financial Officer, Vice President, and Treasurer

Michael Scher
Assistant Vice President, Campus Auxiliary Services and Airlie  

Ann Marie Powell
Sr. Director Dining and Auxiliary Services