Recently I went into Russell Sage Dining Hall to grab a quick sandwich on my way to a meeting. It was about 3:15, so I expected my breakfast-and-lunch meal plan to cover it. Instead, I was charged nearly $9 for dinner. Last semester, I never noticed that kind of thing, because it didn’t matter—my meal plan covered every meal of the day. But now that I’ve changed it, I do notice, and I’m unhappy.
Because of my change in meal plan, I was charged dinner prices for a couple of pieces of turkey, some cheese, and two slices of bread. In fact, that’s just about all that’s available during the afternoon until 4:30 or 5, when dinner food is laid out. Despite that, Marriott starts charging for dinner at 3.
I could see moving to dinner prices at 4 pm. That would make sure that people that are just trying to cheat and get dinner for a lower price would have to wait too long for it to be profitable. But three o’clock is at least an hour and a half before the dining hall even begins to serve dinner food, and that’s prime snack time.
Prices should better reflect the food that’s available. From 3 until 4:30 or later, all that’s available is soup, salad, sandwiches, and maybe a few leftovers from lunch. At 3, less food is available than an hour before, but it costs about $2 more. It’s unfair for people who are just coming in for a quick snack on their way out of a two o’clock class to get charged so much for so little.
There are two reasonable options, then: Start serving dinner food earlier, or don’t start charging for dinner until 4 pm or later. The second option is better for several reasons. First, students rarely eat dinner so early in the afternoon—many don’t even have lunch that early. Second, it would be difficult for Marriott to provide dinner food so close to the end of lunch; I suspect that dinner is already served as soon as possible after lunch is over.
Changing the time that prices switch until later in the afternoon, then, seems to be the easiest and most fair way to solve this problem.
