TO THE EDITOR:
Alpine Bagel Cafe is broken. Wendy’s is broken. The only two dining options available to students in the Student Union are businesses run so poorly that they would never survive in the real restaurant industry.
Ridden with unfair prices, long lines at peak hours, slow service and consistently unfriendly behavior shown by employees, these restaurants provide terrible dining experiences to students studying in the Union.
Since both Wendy’s and Alpine are operated by the University, they do not operate within the basic economic principles of competition, thus they have become notorious for providing miserable experiences to students with no incentive to improve at all.
I propose UNC remove these University-run restaurants, instead allowing two to three privately operated restaurants to lease space in the Union.
This change would increase the quality of the food and improve the customer experience, while also keeping prices low and increasing the restaurants’ incentive to provide remarkable customer service.
Most students have accepted the miserable quality of these restaurants, begrudgingly learning to cope with these awful experiences.
But in the end, nobody wants to wait 20 minutes for an overpriced Frosty or a simply “okay” bagel. And nobody should have to.
Will Darden ’15
Communication Studies
Entrepeneurship
