Collegiate Times

Dining hall center

Voracious students stumbling out of academic buildings craving a gourmet meal may be satisfied in 2012.

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Japanese teppanyaki, Qdoba, gourmet pizza, fresh fruit smoothies, crab cakes or made-to-order crepes are among the food offerings planned for a new dining hall.

Construction is about to begin on a three-story, 90,000-square-foot multipurpose dining and academic building that will be located on the academic side of campus on Old Turner Street next to the ICTAS building.

Rick Johnson, director of housing and dining services, said the building has been “a long time coming.”

“We’ve been working on this for over 10 years,” he said.

Construction is scheduled to begin in June, according to Sherwood Wilson, vice president of administrative services.

Johnson said that the 700-seat, two-floor dining area would be “super busy” once open because of its location near academic buildings. In addition to the 700 seats inside the building, there will be a heated patio designed to provide extra seating during colder months of the year, along with a walk-up, outdoor ordering window on the second floor for students in a rush.

The building, which has a projected budget of about $45 million, does not yet have an official name.

“Until such time as a donor is named, it will be called the Academic and Student Affairs building,” Wilson said.

Although most of the revenue to be generated will come from the 18,000 Virginia Tech students who already hold dining plans both on and off campus, Johnson said he hopes for about a million dollars of extra revenue per year to be generated from cash sales to faculty, staff and students not on meal plans.

In terms of the variety of cuisine to be offered, the facility will “combine the best parts of West End and Hokie Grill,” Johnson said.

West End has only self-branded dining, meaning that all of the recipes are proprietary to Tech. Hokie Grill, on the other hand, only has branded dining such as Chick-fil-A and Pizza Hut.

The first floor will actually be “below ground level,” Johnson said, similar to the main entrance of Derring Hall.

This floor will feature VT Pizza, a gourmet pizza parlor; Jamba Juice, a national smoothie and fruit juice company; and a self-branded bistro featuring upscale items like steak and crab cakes.

A 200-seat dining area dedicated to the Virginia Tech Corps of Cadets is also planned for the first floor. Johnson said that this area would help replace Shultz Hall, as the current corps dining facility will be turned over to the performing arts center renovation project slated to begin sometime this year.

Johnson said that the dining room is designed with long tables to “preserve the traditions of the corps all eating together.”

The cadets eat dinner together four nights per week.

The second floor of the building will have the main entrance, opening onto Old Turner Street. It will also contain dining and seating.

Johnson said that this floor would have a Brueggers Bagels, a self-branded bakery, espresso, a crepes and gelato area, a soup and salad area, a Japanese teppanyaki grill and a Qdoba Mexican grill.

Johnson is especially proud of the final two items.

“This will be the first Japanese grill on a university campus as we understand right now,” he said.

The grill area will be able to seat 40 people at a time. Chefs will cook at the table in front of diners, similar to the setup of Kabuki Japanese Steakhouse and Sushi in Christiansburg, Johnson said.

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