The popularity of Tufts' smallest dining venue, Trios 'Down the Alley', has increased significantly since it underwent changes to its menu and operating structure earlier this semester. Adaptations were made to expand the facility's visibility around campus and to provide students with more convenient and diverse dining options.
The Mugar Hall eatery - former home to the 'Sunset Barbecue' - revamped its afternoon and evening menu to include a variety of wraps, salads, soups, fruit smoothies, and desserts. Student response to the changes has been favorable, and dining officials say many more students are visiting the revised Trios on a daily basis.
Director of Dining and Business Services Patti Lee Klos said that Trios' former barbecue option, although popular with some students, was not bringing in a consistent number of patrons. Daily attendance peaked at 150 people, but dropped to approximately 50 or 60 students toward the end of the fall semester. "[The low numbers] didn't really justify having that [barbecue] service," she said.
The revised menu at Trios has brought in a consistent number of approximately 125 customers daily.
"A lot of changes that happen in food services are reactionary," explained Klos. "We also try to be visionary." Dining Services does so by observing student habits and compiling data from surveys about when and where students eat.
Because several students had indicated that they would like Dining Services to provide fruit smoothies, Klos said offering the drinks at Trios was a good hook to improve the venue's popularity. From there, Klos decided to introduce other new items to the menu, especially since the kitchen at Trios was being underutilized due to low attendance.
"I went here once before and it was bad," senior Gabrielle Grode said as she dined at the new Trios. The advertised changes in Trios' menu encouraged her to give it another chance, and she was pleased with the modifications. "It's a little more intimate and cozy [than the other dining halls]," she said.
One possible deterrent for student attendance, though, has been the modification in acceptable forms of payment. Students were previously allowed to use a meal to purchase food there, but now only cash and dining dollars are accepted.
"The really big disappointment I had was that the food is more expensive," said Melinda Coolidge, who, as chair of the Tufts Community Union Senate's services committee, assisted in implementing some of the changes. "But I think the changes that have taken place are generally for the good."
Klos explained that meal plan payment was eliminated for financial reasons. The money that students pay for their meal plans primarily serves to covering the operating costs of the two main dining halls. Trios, however, is self-sufficient and must therefore cover its own operating costs. In addition, the seating capacity at Trios is limited to approximately 60 people, and a surge in frequenters could potentially lead to overcrowding.
Klos also believes that Trios will be a good outlet for dining dollars, of which students on the 100 or 160 meal-plans have plenty.
One of Trios' main attractions is its take-out option. Dining Services is well aware of student desire for accessible food after dining halls close at night, and Trios is intended in part to provide a convenient and efficient alternative to ordering out from local restaurants. The creation of Trios-Down-the-Alley is part of a larger process to extend campus dining hours. Takeout at Trios is currently available from 5-8 p.m., but Dining Services may extend the hours until 10 p.m. on an experimental basis at some point in April. If successful, the hours may later be extended to midnight.
Dining Services anticipates having a Trios sampling at Dewick - similar to one that occurred in Carmichael earlier this semester - in an effort to further increase student awareness of dining options. Presently, Trios' clientele consists largely of members of the Fletcher community, both graduate students and staff.
