As seen in the Washington Square News.
A new campus convenience store has opened up in the lobby of the Water Street residence hall, offering assorted snacks and necessities to downtown residents who are far from campus eateries.
The “C3 Quickstop” kiosk opened up immediately after spring break, offering Starbucks coffee, energy bars, soda and prepared salads in hopes of strengthening the relationship between downtown residents and NYU’s dining services, representatives from Aramark, the company that handles NYU’s various dining services, said.
“It’s one of the largest dorms on campus,” said Lisa Boren, Aramark’s marketing director. “It seems like a good fit.”
Downtown residents have expressed the desire for dining services downtown, but did not have a specific solution in mind, said Owen Moore, director of dining services at NYU.
Students were polled with online surveys and a focus group was used to ensure positive student response, Boren said.
“We wanted to make sure it was a part of the campus dining program so [students] can use declining dollars and campus cash,” Moore said.
Dining services settled on the C3 kiosk to best fit the limited space available downtown, and decided that providing quick grab-and-go items was a higher priority than a sit-down eatery, Moore said. It is closed on weekends and during afternoon hours when most students are in class.
Aramark has been working with the prototype to this C3 Quickstop kiosk, opening them in airports and along the West Coast, Moore said.
“It’s going to be used as a test site for the rest of the semester,” Moore said. “The reason it opened this time of year is so we can get two months of data to find out if it’s economically sound, and we’re not increasing expenses to the program.”
If the new store proves to be a success, it will pave the way for more dining options in residence halls that are currently without dining services, Boren said.
“We definitely are hoping to see more of these on campus,” she said.
The opening of Water Street’s kiosk marks the first opening of a C3 Quickstop kiosk in the eastern region.
Aramark chose to open in Water Street even though university officials have recently noted that they want to phase out the Water Street residence hall because it is too expensive to maintain.
“We’ve always been investigating [expanding downtown],” Moore said. “There just was not an economical solution prior to this C3 kiosk.”
Since opening three weeks ago, residents at Water Street have had nothing but praise for the new store in their lobby.
“I haven’t had one bit of negative feedback yet,” said Molly Barclay, an Aramark employee who works at the kiosk. “The students are happy, and that’s all that counts. They think it’s the greatest thing.”
Many upperclassmen who live far from campus traditionally forego NYU’s dining services in favor of shopping at local stores or ordering groceries online, but now Water Street residents have a supplement.
For Water Street residents, living in the financial district doesn’t provide easily accessible dining options.
“It makes up for not having a cafe or anything in Water,” said Ali Malik, a Stern sophomore who lives in Water Street. “It’s a lot more convenient than running anywhere else and missing the bus.”