Bobby Lee is a freshman journalism major at MU. He writes for The Maneater about political affairs, MU, the state of journalism and environmental topics.

MU desperately needs another late-night dining option. How do I know this? I am currently sitting at Rollins @Night, MU’s only late-night dining option, and writing this introduction as my food is 40 minutes late. MU needs to improve late-night dining on campus.

As any student from MU knows, getting late-night food on campus is incredibly difficult. If someone gets done with sand volleyball and decides they’re hungry at 9 p.m., they are out of luck for the most part. It is a fallacy to act like every student eats dinner at 5 or 6 p.m., when most dinner options are open. Students have sports, classes, clubs and other activities, and late-night dining sometimes works better for their schedules. However, if they try to order around 9 p.m. when they’re free, dozens and dozens of orders are already flooding the only operating dining hall on campus. If they can even get in an order, their food will almost certainly be late.

However, this is not the staff’s fault at Rollins @Night. They are understaffed and underprepared to serve 6,700 hungry students. 

The worst part is the overall design and structure itself. The late-night dining option is an à la carte restaurant, meaning the workers have to prepare every order individually. If anything gets behind, this can delay the whole process. The huge buildup of people waiting nightly inside the cramped staircase and minimal standing room of Rollins with no seating available is the direct result. Additionally, the serving of individual pizzas means that almost every order requires an entirely new item for the cooks to make instead of an item that can be cooked and distributed across multiple orders. 

This poor design is clearly recognized by MU students. Several students I have talked to have had a bad experience at Rollins @Night. Many of my friends just order from Uber Eats or walk downtown because the wait at Rollins @Night is longer. However, dining at night does not have to be the travesty it currently is. With a few changes, MU late-night dining could be vastly improved.

First, change the location of the late-night dining option to Plaza 900 Dining. Plaza 900 is much more spacious and would allow the situation to feel less cramped. Additionally, there is enough seating to allow people to actually sit down and enjoy their food instead of taking it to go. 

This change to Plaza 900 transitions into the single most important change that MU should make: turn late-night dining into a buffet style. Rollins @Night’s à la carte style oftens gets clogged in the traffic of orders, which causes lines to get even longer. The buffet style would allow for a more consistent flow of traffic, which would allow more people to get fed quicker. Additionally, the format would allow for a better distribution of food, which would make each individual station in Plaza 900 less busy. This would help stop the stress and amount of work each dining worker has. Buffet style would allow for more people to eat while waiting for less time and not overwhelming the staff.

Lastly, the best thing would be more than one late-night dining option. The more accessible dining, the more students can eat comfortably at a time and location that works for them.

MU is an expensive place to live. It costs an estimated $24,000 per year to attend this university for Missouri residents and even more for out-of-state students. With the amount of money people are paying, there should be good and accessible late-night dining. Students need to have dining options available that work for their schedules.  In the end, no student should be waiting in an hour-long line at 10 p.m., waiting for cafeteria pizza.

While we may have the ability to demand better and more dining options, many across the country do not have the same privilege. The Maneater and its staff support ending hunger across the country and we urge all of our readers to donate to Feeding America. September is Hunger Action month and Feeding America has worked hard to end hunger across the United States. $1 can go towards 10 meals so please consider donating to help end this terrible problem.

Edited by Sarah Rubinstein | srubinstein@themaneater.com