When Carolina Dining Services recently announced that UNC students with a meal plan would have access to seven PLUS Swipes per week for the remainder of the semester, it was exciting news.
However, it reminded everybody on North Campus that the Bottom of Lenoir was operating at a limited capacity and that the Top was closed for the entire semester.
Every week, the Bottom of Lenoir is only open on weekdays, between 10:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m., for Chick-fil-A and Mediterranean Deli — and even on Fridays, these hours are reduced.
As much as we all love the spicy chicken sandwich at Chick-fil-A and the varied flavors of Med Deli, it inevitably gets redundant to choose from the same few PLUS Swipe options at the two restaurants. It also has people questioning why places like Sushinara or Merritt’s aren’t open for dining options.
Not only would it make PLUS Swipes more valuable to have on hand, but it would also increase the variety of options available to all UNC students, instead of just rotating between the handful of restaurants that accept the swipes.
But the lack of current options isn’t the biggest complaint that many students living on North Campus have. Rather, it’s the annoying and inconvenient walk that we have to embark upon in order to get to Chase Dining Hall, which is operating with regular hours. That, combined with the often freezing temperatures at this time of year, can make for some pretty uncomfortable and lengthy walks just to get food.
There was recently a post on the @blacksheep_unc Instagram account that poked fun at the situation many North Campus students face. The post features a meme where a person representing “north campus mfs” is being separated from the other side, representing a “normal step count." The gaping hole in the middle separating the two is labeled with Lenoir being closed, and the caption sarcastically states, “My daily step count is higher than tuition at this point."
With over 1,000 likes, this clearly isn’t just the sentiment of a single individual.
