With the recent decision to forgo the sale of sizzlers on Fridays, rumors of more dining cutbacks have been swirling around the Keene State College campus.
Perhaps the most concerning rumor to the students of KSC was one indicating Hoot n’ Scoot would be shutting its doors beginning next semester.
While the signs may point to this being a legitimate possibility in the near future, General Manager of Dining Services at KSC Josef Quirinale said there is absolutely no plan to shut down Hoot n’ Scoot.
“There is nothing planned at the moment,” Quirinale said.
Quirinale said that the campus is facing some financial difficulties right now, and that the dining department is no different, as they are a part of the campus.
“Our campus client came to us and said, ‘We really need to do some conservation here, because the campus as a whole needs to look at spending and be as tight as possible.’”
Quirinale said that in this type of situation, the department comes up with what he called a shopping list, showing how much each type of food or service they use costs and [then] evaluates the popularity of those foods and services.
Once these statistics are evaluated, the less popular foods or services are looked at as the possibilities for what could hypothetically be cut.
“It’s an arbitrary thing,” Quirinale said.
“We know how much it costs to provide the sizzler on a Friday, for instance. We know how much it costs to provide the Hoot on a daily basis. We also know how many students take advantage of that,” Quirinale said.
Quirinale also said that those types of decisions are made on the other end and that he is not responsible for making those decisions.
Quirinale said that there were a couple of options involving Hoot n’ Scoot that were talked about, including closing the service for one day out of the week, or one meal.
However, the decision was eventually reached that the service would not be altered in any way.
Crae Messer can be contacted at cmesser@kscequinox.com