Throughout the day students are going from class to class. One of the most important things for them is to eat and sometimes grab something quick from a local dining place on campus.
However, each campus food option only an has outside dining area.
Cafe Camino, located west of the Humanities Building, has its dining option right outside with about seven tables. The Campus Deli, north of the Art Gallery, has about seven tables to the right of the gates after exiting. Common Grounds’ dining area is the largest space with about 15 booths and is outside the Student Activities Center.
All three of the major food options on campus only have outside dining. There is nowhere on campus where students can get their lunch and eat in an inside area. Students cannot eat inside of classrooms and there is nowhere to eat inside of buildings.
Other community colleges like West Los Angeles and Cerritos College have indoor dining.
West L.A. has the WLAC Cafe and Pavilion where they have Cafe West, a dining option with indoor seating.
Cerritos College has an indoor food court with multiple options like The Bowl, Burdog, Culinary Arts Cafe and Subway.
Although buildings at El Camino College have seating throughout them, only a few have a table and seating arrangements. The buildings that have both tables and seating are limited.
An indoor dining area is one of the few things EC does not have. If EC were to install an indoor food court to combine all three dining options and offer indoor seating, students would be thrilled with that.
Even if it is not an official food court but just an area inside to eat, students will have the same satisfaction. Students do not want to eat outside all the time because of the weather changes.
During hot summer days, students are stuck eating lunch outside in one of the patio booths and some do not have an umbrella. Another scenario where the weather may play a part is when its raining and there is nowhere dry to eat.
There are booths all over campus but not all have umbrellas attached to them so the rain could cause a major issue when deciding when and where to get lunch. Students may then turn to get food at an offsite campus location.
The addition of an inside dining area on campus could result in more business to all on-campus food options. Students would not feel as obligated to go off campus to sit down and eat in an indoor environment.
One of the indoor dining areas could be next to the Student Activities Center. EC could convert a piece of the large outside space near the Common Grounds cafe into an indoor dining area.
The only indoor space that could be used as a dining area is inside the Student Activities Center. The Student Activities Center has about 10 tables inside that are usually occupied by students collaborating or doing school work.
A small piece of the Student Activities Center could also be transformed into a small dining area inside.
Starting new construction for indoor dining at EC could be avoided.
Once the construction that is already underway is completed and faculty/administration can move into their new offices, EC can use the dining rooms above the bookstore as indoor seating for students.
