The Garden Room is facing continued financial difficulties despite recent efforts to improve its visibility on Grounds, Dining Services Director Edward Gutauskas said.
Representatives from ARAmark Dining Services and the University community are meeting today to discuss the status of the Garden Room, a dining facility designed to encourage student and faculty interaction.
At the meeting, "we are going to look at the service being provided and the costs incurred for the service," Gutauskas said. "There is not enough business to cover the costs."
The Garden Room opened in fall 1998 as a place to foster the Faculty Senate initiative of the "intellectual community" outside of classrooms.
But the number of people who eat at the Garden Room is averaging about 35 to 40 people per day for lunch and it needs 75 to 80 people to cover its costs, Gutauskas said.
But Faculty Senate members said it is too soon to think about closing the Garden Room because it is growing, although slowly, in popularity.
During the week of Oct. 28th, 228 people ate lunch at the Garden Room, but only 179 people dined there the following week, said Robert Grainger, Faculty Senate Academic Affairs Committee chairman. There were only about 150 people eating there in the early fall, he said.
"The numbers are averaging higher every week," he added.
The Garden Room, located in Hotel E on the Lawn's West Range, is an "actual community, somewhere to take students and distinguished guests," Faculty Senate Chairman David T. Gies said.
Alton Taylor, Education professor and a board member of the Colonnade Club Hotel committee, said he hopes the participants at the meeting would be able to work out a solution.
"All parties are so committed to the University -- if there is any possible way, we'll work it out," Taylor said.
Gutauskas said Dining Services has increased advertising for the Garden Room by giving coupons to graduate students and by telling visiting corporate recruiters about it.
"We concentrated our efforts this semester, and [business] isn't that much better than it was a year ago" when the Garden Room was first opened, Gutauskas said.
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