The age of cafeterias is long gone from college campus environments.

More and more community colleges are adopting the concept of food trucks during school hours to provide a greater variety of options for students.

Neighboring community college Santa Monica College has found great success in utilizing food trucks, and El Camino should follow in their footsteps.

Students are busy and often find themselves rushing from class to class without time to go off campus to have something other than the food offered on campus. With food trucks, students would be able to grab something quickly without having to leave campus with a scarce amount of time.

In The Union’s story, “A seat at the lunch table” in Vol. 32 No. 5 published on Thursday, Dec. 7, communications major Samsara Read noted how difficult it was to find vegetarian options on campus.

“It’s hard for me to find great filling meals here on campus,” Read said.

With this in mind, food trucks could be the bridge to providing vegetarian and vegan options to students on campus.

Dietary needs aside, food trucks could also provide diverse cultural options in food for students and faculty.

Students and faculty would not be the only ones to benefit from food trucks. El Camino College would gain benefits financially too.

Food trucks would have to pay a fee to use the campus as a source of vending, which would not only be an advantage for EC but the businesses as well. Small and local businesses would gain exposure for their operations by being on campus.

According to the director of Purchasing and Business Services Rocky Bonura in the story “A seat at the lunch table,” past companies who vended on campus were not profitable when the academic year was not in session but food trucks could be the solution for this problem.

Food trucks would only be on campus for a specific amount of time and could move around freely without committing to a long-term contract this would nullify any concerns for a loss of profit.

Recently, EC adopted the services of mobile cafe, Atomic Cafe and has found that it is a popular option among students and faculty to get something beside the basic choices offered through EC.

Atomic Cafe was a step in the right direction for a food renaissance at El Camino; let’s continue moving forward.