Dining Hall: A feast of options

Dining Hall to offer new meal plans for students, faculty, staff

As the fall semester begins, the Edinburg Vaquero Dining Hall is introducing new meal plan options tailored for residents, students, faculty and staff.

“Historically, we had weekly meal plans and a few block meal plans, but most of them were traditional weekly meal plans,” said Melissa Ramírez, assistant director for Auxiliary Business Services. “… They would reset every week and then you would start with the new set. … This year, we have changed the meal plans and the structure of the meal plan, so we no longer have the weekly meal plans. We are offering block meal plans.”

The Edinburg Vaquero Dining Hall offers meals during breakfast, brunch, lunch and dinner meal periods.  

The meal plan options range from 25 meal blocks to an unlimited meal plan. For the full list of the resident and commuter meal plan options, visit utrgv.edu/mealplan.

To purchase a meal plan, log in to V One Card on your applications, select “purchase meal plan” from the quick links menus, choose a plan that meets your needs, select a payment method and click “submit” to have your meal plan added to your account.

The meal plans range from $280 up to $2,266 per semester.

Ramírez said the block meal plan allows the UTRGV community to use the block of meals anytime during the semester without losing any of the value.

“We will be introducing employee meal plans, so that’s exciting,” she said. “We’ve got a block of 25 and a block of 40 that we are going to be launching. … We’re going to launch a ‘Try Before You Buy’ campaign for employees to allow them to visit the dining hall. … We’re going to be offering those meal plans through payroll deduction also, which is helpful to employees.”

Marshall Saenz, lecturer II in the department of Writing and Language Studies, said he has visited the dining hall a few times and thinks it would be helpful if it sold prepared boxes of food, since he may “not have 30 or 45 minutes to eat something.”

Saenz said the “Try Before You Buy” campaign can be helpful for faculty and staff to get a taste of the dining hall.

“It might let us know, you know, what the food options are, what things taste like, what’s available also with different dietary restrictions,” he said. 

Asked about his thoughts on the option of payroll deduction for purchasing the meal plans, Saenz replied it would be beneficial depending on how the meal plan deduction would be implemented.

“Usually, we expect to have a certain amount in our paycheck and we kind of budget according to that,” he said. “… Again, it depends if there’s any kind of discount or bonus to getting a blocked plan versus just going in and buying, you know, there on the spot or going somewhere else, too. So, I think what’s resonating out of this is the time efficiency and also the cost factor in it, because for some faculty, too, like we may not be able to eat lunch there every single day if we have one class after the next.”

The meal plan options for faculty and staff are expected to be available in the next couple of weeks.

The dining hall is open from 7:30 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday through Friday and from 10:30 a.m. to 8 p.m Saturday and Sunday.

Every meal plan option includes dining dollars that can be used at the Chartwells-operated food venues on either campus.

The Edinburg campus offers different dining options, such as Chick-fil-A, Revolution Noodle, Community Corner, Tea Co., Rio Bravo Cafe, Vaquero Subs, Valley Harvest, Heritage Coffee, The Market and Pizza Hut.

The Brownsville campus offers The Market, La Mesa, Pizza Hut, Southern Rose and Absurd Bird.

El Comedor will still host “Smoking Thursdays,” which will feature barbecue-based meals for campus community members. 

Ramírez said the UTRGV Dining Services is considering bringing “Smoking Thursdays” to the Edinburg campus due to the success in Brownsville.

The dining hall in Edinburg offers meal options for people with dietary needs.

“We do have a station in the dining hall called ‘Delicious Without,’”she said. “… All the food prepared in that station excludes the top allergens. … If there’s specific dietary needs that you have, our general manager, our chef [is] always willing to have the conversation and tailor your meal to your needs.”

Asked about plans to add a dining hall on the Brownsville and Harlingen campus in the near future, Ramirez replied they are currently exploring different options.

“I don’t know about a dining hall,” she said. “… That’s pretty costly, but we are looking to explore options to maybe bring a food truck park to the Brownsville campus. Different options to bring in more options to students on the Brownsville campus. … We are looking to expand food options on the Harlingen campus.”

Jaslyn De Leon, a junior in social work, has been on the resident meal plan for over a year and finds the dining hall food options to be repetitive.

De Leon said incorporating a wider variety of meal options would be a good idea.

Simone Griffith, an art education senior who has the resident meal plan, said her experience at the dining hall has been positive.

Griffith said it would be a good idea to extend the dining hall hours.

“If they close a little bit later, maybe 9 or 10, it would allow others to, you know, just eat a little bit later, especially if you have a late class,” she said. “Because I do have a late class, and last year I had to run to the dining hall just to make it.”

Brownsville-based criminal justice senior Francisco Ortiz said it would be “hard” to put a dining hall on the Brownsville campus due to a lack of space and resources. 

Ortiz said the options Brownsville already has available is good.

“It may be small, but the fact is, they have good-working chefs,” he said, motioning over his shoulder at El Comedor. “The food is still delicious and, the fact is, it’s easy to find.”

For more information on the meal plans, contact Campus Auxiliary Services at dining@utrgv.edu or call 665-2224.

–Editor in Chief Natalie Lapsley contributed to this story.