OU’s Baker Center plans changes to address red ink in food service
By Jim Phillips
Athens NEWS Senior Writer
April 28, 2008
Running a deficit estimated at nearly $1 million due to rising food prices and slower food sales than expected, the dining services in Ohio University’s Baker Center will probably reduce hours at some of its food vendors and make some staffing changes.
Christine Sheets, assistant vice president for auxiliary services, confirmed Friday that dining services in Baker are expected to run about a $1 million deficit for the fiscal year that ends in June. The student center, which replaced the much smaller old Baker Center, has been open since January 2007, and the dining services also ran a deficit of more than $1 million in its first six months of operations.
Sheets said there are multiple reasons for the shortfall, including slower business than was expected at the center’s West 82 food court, and the rising cost of foodstuffs.
“Our sales were not as anticipated, and our costs have been a lot higher,” she explained. “We really over-estimated our revenue.”
Currently, she said, she and other officials involved with the dining services in Baker are working on a plan to bring the program back into the black. Details remain to be worked out, she said, but she suggested the plan will probably involve cutting some hours for food venders in West 82, and could also include job or work-hour reductions among student, union and administrative employees. Any plan will have to be approved by Bill Decatur, OU’s vice president for finance and administration.
“Nothing is set in stone,” Sheets emphasized. She said OU has already had discussions with the American Federation of State, Local and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) local that represents classified employees at the university. She said fewer than 20 union jobs are involved with Baker’s dining services.
Sheets said some areas of Baker dining services are doing better than others. Best numbers, she said, are seen during lunch hours at West 82, with earlier and later times not bringing in as much revenue.
“Our lunch business is the core business of the day,” she said.
Baker dining services includes West 82, Bobcat Essentials, the Latitude 39 restaurant, and the Front Room, with most of the focus on cost-cutting apparently at West 82.
Latitude 39 has not been paying for itself, she said, but added that OU officials expected that such a high-end, sit-down restaurant might have to be subsidized.
Sheets said changes could include cutting hours at the food court (it has already ceased operating on Sundays), and even shutting down some individual vendors or staggering the times different vendors are open.
Sheets said dining service officials also need to look more closely at what the most popular food items are at the food court, and perhaps concentrate more on those, and on marketing the dining services more effectively.
Another factor, as mentioned, is the rising cost of food nationally (and globally), which Sheets said is definitely playing a part in the Baker deficit. OU is also looking into ways to save money there, she said.
“There are ways,” she said. “We are re-costing things.”
Since new Baker Center opened, some uptown restaurateurs have complained about unfair competition from the food court at Baker.
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