I am part of the class of 2025, meaning my freshman year was the last year we had Wells Dining Hall. For those of you who haven’t been on campus as long, the ghost-kitchen pub on campus used to be Wells Dining Hall. Just like Hilltop or York, a student with a traditional meal plan could get breakfast or lunch there. It was heaven.
That’s why students were outraged when they closed Wells my sophomore year. At the time, our dining services were provided by the University. Later that academic year, Sodexo was contracted to facilitate dining services. We were promised many things: a renovated York Dining Hall, reopened Wells and increased access to retail dining on campus.
In my junior year, there was still no Wells, but now a plan for Wells to be turned into a pub, which provided fried food, beer and wine. Students like myself were confused, but would have been livid if we knew just what this meant.
If one of the corporate decision makers at Sodexo asked us about this before they began renovation we would have told them that isn’t what students want, or even a feasible concept on this campus. The majority of the students living on campus are not of drinking age, and the ones that are do not seek to drink on campus. No one asked students if we wanted this. Rather, we were informed these changes were happening. Many students voiced concerns about access to nutritious, warm meals in that part of the campus. Concerns were ignored, and the pub was built.
Now, it is my senior year. Wells Pub has great seating, amazing employees and is empty. Wells Pub is actually so empty that I walked in there to interview people for this article and I couldn’t find anyone. There was one employee making a pizza for Sal’s.
Why are we writing about this now? This past week, Wells stopped serving the pub menu. You can still order a microwaved meal from Mr. Beast Burger but the pub food is what worked for Wells. I did not go there to eat at a ghost kitchen, I went for the wings and poutine.
It’s insulting to students. When we tell leadership what we think will work and won’t work and are ignored, it’s offensive. Any student could have predicted the emptiness of Wells Pub last year. I was originally told years ago that the closure of Well’s Dining Hall was because of low enrollment. Contrary to this, UMaine has seen an increase in enrollment and an increase in first-year retention. Wells needs to find a way to cater to students with traditional meal plans. Wells needs to cater to students period.
