September 7, 2016

By Tammy Ko

Freshman Austin Walker was already tired of repetitive options at campus dining halls. Then, he found a colorful food truck parked at Speakers Circle.

“It’s only been two weeks, and we’re all kind of sick of Rollins and Plaza food, so this is a good alternative,” he said.

The Missouri Students Association and Campus Dining Services collaborated to start Food Truck Friday, a weekly event that will last through the first week of November. Two trucks each week out of 10 will make an appearance throughout the month, which started with Lilly’s Cantina and Grill-A-Brothers last Friday.

“It really stoked a sense of community and a liveliness on campus that was really welcoming, especially for a freshman like myself,” freshman Mitch Woodson said.

Freshman Emerson Davis agreed the event made Speakers Circle a better place to be.

“Now I had a reason to come out here,” Davis said.

Food Truck Friday is an alternative food option for students who are fed up with campus dining, said Hunter Windholz, an MSA Campus and Community Relations Committee member. Students cannot use their meal plan to purchase food at the trucks.

CCRC has been working on a project to bring food trucks to campus for several years now.

“Our committees sometimes lose manpower as our academic workloads increase, and some projects get lost at the bottom of our agendas,” Windholz said. “It just takes a new member to come through with the passion for an old project to connect the last of the dots.”

Windholz acknowledged that the dining halls usually have the same food, which tends to drive students to eat downtown rather than on campus.

That is why Windholz said CCRC brought Food Truck Friday to campus: to give students more diverse food options, save them time on their commute, allow them to socialize with their peers and bring more energy to Speakers Circle.

“I think it’s a really cool thing because we don’t get a lot of different options for food, so it’s nice to have this available to us when it’s easy to walk to because I don’t always want to walk downtown,” freshman Libby Stanford said.

_Edited by Emily Gallion | egallion@themaneater.com_