Stacks Café reopened for the fall semester in the O’Shaughnessy-Frey Library after closing at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in the spring of 2020. However, Scooter’s will remain closed until staffing issues are resolved, according to Dining Services.
Stacks reopened because it is a student-run dining service. Previously, TommieMedia reported Scooter’s would reopen Aug. 21, but St. Thomas has since changed this due to a shortage of professional chefs that are needed to run the restaurant.
“It really comes down to staffing,” Stephen Griffin, executive director of Dining Services, said. “[Scooter’s] could be open right now if we had the staff. We need two to three more cooks and we can open.”
Griffin cited the high quit rate in the leisure and hospitality industry for the prevailing issue. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 6.1% of workers in the leisure and hospitality industry quit their jobs in August, compared to an overall rate of 2.7% in all industries.
For Stacks, student staffing was not an issue this semester. Griffin said staffing was not an issue likely because Dining Services offers a base pay rate of $14.50, compared to St. Thomas’s minimum wage of $12.50.
But there will be a few changes to Stacks compared to 2020; it no longer offers food.
Rising inflation is an obstacle to offering food like pastries, according to Griffin. Pastry prices have increased so much that selling them at a reasonable price would make the food unprofitable.
As for Scooter’s, seniors who remember when the restaurant was open are frustrated that it has remained closed.
“[Scooter’s] kind of just feels like a dead space,” senior Mackenzie Frey said. “[It] sucks that it’s gone.”
Frey misses having “a food option after 8 p.m.” after other dining options have closed.
“It was a fun place to hang out at night,” Frey said.
However, Scooter’s will operate differently when it reopens. Students will order and pay for their meals at a contactless kiosk at the order station. They will then pick up their order when their number is displayed on one of the many televisions mounted on the walls.
Griffin hopes that Scooter’s will once again become an active hub for students to socialize, while keeping up with events the space has been used for in the past, like comedians and karaoke.
“It’s all ready to go,” Griffin said. “All we need is food and people.”
Anya Capistrant-Kinney can be reached at capi2087@stthomas.edu.