Recently, Eat at State announced operational changes for Thrive at Owen and The Vista at Shaw, located inside Shaw Hall in the River Trail Neighborhood, that will be put into effect during the Fall 2025 semester. As part of these changes, Thrive will be closed on weekends and The Vista at Shaw will open on weekends.

Associate Director of Marketing and Communications for Culinary Services Cheryl Berry said this decision was made after analyzing data that revealed the low demand amongst students.

"Thrive has only been open on the weekends for the past couple of years, and we really thought there would be a higher demand for it, but what we saw was that there were only about 100 students per day that were utilizing Thrive," Berry said. "It's a large cost for us to keep a dining hall open. It's all the staff we have to pay, the food costs and everything involved in that."

Additionally, Berry said their efforts to increase the number of students utilizing the dining hall this year were unsuccessful, ultimately leading to their decision to close Thrive on weekends.

However, many students expressed concerns about these upcoming changes. Elementary education freshman Rachel Maltese said this decision alarms her.

"Honestly, I'm really concerned about Owen Hall closing on weekends next semester," Maltese said. "As a student with a life-threatening peanut allergy, Owen Hall is really one of the few places on campus where I know I can eat safely, since it's peanut-free and allergen-free."

Additionally, Maltese said finding an environment to dine comfortably is important to her.

"I struggle with anxiety surrounding food just because of my allergy, so eating somewhere that is completely peanut and allergen-free really reassures me and makes me feel more comfortable," Maltese said. "The fact that it's closing on weekends now is just honestly very upsetting to me."

Similarly, horticulture sophomore Sarah Mrowka said the changes can inconvenience those with allergies who utilize Thrive, like herself.

"It's kind of frustrating when they do close, especially because dinner for the weekends and stuff, our only options would be Combos," Mrowka said. "A lot of times, depending on what allergy you have, there's not very many options. For me, there's only one or two different meals I can get at the Combos, and a lot of times they're out of stock."

Music education freshman Anna Young said she follows a strict gluten-free diet due to having Celiac Disease, but tends to find limited gluten-free options at other dining halls.

"At other dining halls, the gluten-free options are pretty much the same thing every day," Young said. "It's nice to be able to go to Owen and have some variety, as opposed to just having a sandwich every day at the dining hall by me. Especially because the weekends is one of the only time I actually do have time to go to Owen, I think it would be really nice to have that open next year."

As an alternative, The Vista at Shaw will open from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. on the weekends and offer Thrive To Go meals in the East Lounge. Thrive To Go meals will be available as a Combo-X-Change (CX) option, consisting of prepackaged entrées and sides prepared at Thrive, excluding the nine major allergens. Other items and beverages will also be available.

Mrowka said she doesn’t believe the alternative will be of much benefit for those with food allergies.

"They can't really use it as an alternative, just because Owen is open for everybody, even if you don't have allergies," Mrowka said. "Those allergy meals are going to be prioritized and picked first, even by people who don't have allergies, just because it's healthier and people like the cleaner options, even if they don't have allergies. They're not going to be able to provide the demand that Owen would provide if they were open."

Similarly, Young expressed disappointment in the decision.

"I do think that closing a dining hall, especially the one that is for allergies, on the weekends is just not really fair," Young said. "We already have really limited options at other dining halls, so taking away the place that is really safe is just kind of disappointing to me."

However, according to Berry, implementing the decision doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s a permanent adjustment.

"We're going to monitor it extremely close, and if that need picks up (and) if we see that we can't make enough food to support these students, then we'll have to look at reopening Thrive," Berry said. "But, we need to see how this goes as kind of a pilot and see what happens."