As it turns out, the difference in student dining experiences was also a lesson in economics. Ohio U was an “all you can eat” system in those days. Each student was issued a “dining card,” which was updated with a new sticker each quarter. If you had a current card, you could enter any dining hall at any time and eat as much as you wanted. At Bowling Green, students bought “meal coupon books” and paid for each individual item with a certain number of coupons. This system incentivized the food service staff at Bowling Green to offer a wide variety of high-value products such as steak, salad bar and gourmet sandwich options. In contrast, their counterparts at Ohio U provided two or three cost-effective options each day that no one would especially want to gorge on.
A few of the Ohio U dishes were okay, but there were occasions where none of the offered options were very appealing. On those days, we broke into the cereal bar. The cereal bar was a large table on wheels outfitted with a dozen plexiglass bins that contained generic versions of breakfast cereal favorites. Whooties, Cheer-Yodles, Raisin Flakes, Fruit Hoops, Admir’l Smoosh, you get the idea. After breakfast each day, the bar was wheeled to the dining hall corner and covered with a plastic tarp. On days when the lunch or dinner menus were less than attractive, though, my buddies and I would liberate it, throwing off the cover and opening up its flakey, sugary goodness to the masses.
I thought about those Fruit Hoops days last week when I saw an article in the Charlotte Business Journal about a new restaurant concept opening in Charlotte, the Day & Nite Exotic Cereal Bar. I initially thought it was an April Fools gag (did you get your Anson Loggers tickets yet?), but no, it’s a real business with franchises in major metro areas across the country.
While there are many advantages to living and working in a rural community, even the most hardened homesteader occasionally longs for a night at the movies, a live concert or sporting event, or a cold one at a craft brewery. Some covet their neighbors’ Panera or lust for a fresh Krispy Kreme. But I honestly don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone say, “If only there were a place I could go and choose from dozens of different cereals.”
Clearly, there must be a market for Lucky Charms on demand, but I have a hard time understanding who it is. As a rule, if I have a craving for Cap’n Crunch I’ll just run down to the Food Lion and buy a box. I will grant you that the same could be said about coffee or craft beer, and Speckled Paw and the various local breweries seem to be doing just fine. But I think there is a difference. Coffee shops aren’t really selling coffee, they are selling an experience, a lifestyle – ditto places like Olde Meck Brewery and Catawba Brewing Company. Sure, you could buy exactly the same product at the grocery store and enjoy it in the privacy of your own home, but as we’ve all learned over the past year, part of the enjoyment of those products is WHERE you enjoy them.
Coffee shops are de facto second offices for many business people (I’m writing this column from a table at the Speckled Paw), and craft breweries are family-oriented meeting places where live music, contests and interesting food trucks are as much on tap as the beer. I have a tough time visualizing a conversation that goes, “Let’s get together for a bowl of cereal and go over this contract.”
Don’t get me wrong; I wish the folks at Day & Nite well. Heaven knows I love me a good bowl of cereal every now and then. In fact, I’m planning to give it a try the next time I’m in Charlotte. I just hope they have Admir’l Smoosh … with Smooshberries.
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