Pit Stop gets new floors

The Pit Stop, a popular on-campus convenience store run by Student Stores, received a bit of a facelift over spring break.

Student Stores manager John Gorsuch said the store, last renovated in 2006, was becoming worn out.

“We wanted to do a significant freshen up to the store and just keep it pleasant to the students who shop there and also be more serviceable” Gorsuch said.

Changes to the Pit Stop aren’t the only renovations at Student Stores. Gorsuch said they are starting a project in three weeks to create a graduation and alumni shop in the first floor of Student Stores.

“The store will show off diploma frames, announcements and upscale gifts that visiting alumni would like,” Gorsuch said. “We hope to have this shop functional for all of the seniors graduating this year and have it finished in May.”

In addition to a fresh coat of paint in the Pit Stop, Student Stores also replaced some fixtures in the convenience store, improved the layout of the store slightly by lowering the shelves and replaced the floors.

“The floor was pretty much worn out, so we found a company called Stonhard that had this interesting product that we might be considering to use throughout our building here,” Gorsuch said.

Student Stores is using the Pit Stop as a test floor to see how Stonhard holds up to the beating of customers coming and going all day. So far, they have been happy with the look.

“We’re pretty pleased with how the project turned out,” Gorsuch said.

The renovations started in mid-January and are basically complete, aside from a few finishing touches such as adding molding and touching up the paint.

Over spring break, all of the non-refrigerated food was moved out of the store so they could do a complete job on the floor. As of Tuesday morning, everything was returned.

Gorsuch said they haven’t added up the total cost of the renovations yet, but the work was fairly inexpensive.

“We are very careful with how we spend the money because we pay for the renovations out of the stores operations,” Gorsuch said. “What we do is enhance the store so we can do business efficiently and donate more money to student scholarships.”

Sophomore William Harris said he was pleasantly surprised with the Pit Stop renovations.

“When I go to the shop, I’m usually in and out pretty quickly, but it was really noticeable how much nicer it looked when I got back from spring break,” Harris said.

Nick Caligari, the late night Pit Stop manager, said he wasn’t surprised that they were planning on renovating.

“I was on spring break, so I wasn’t present for the renovations, but I know the floors were concrete before and that was the main thing that we changed,” Caligari said.

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