Taste of San Antonio (ToSA) is a popular dining option for students, but since the beginning of the semester, past restaurants have failed to return and new food options such as grilled cheese and acai bowls don’t appear to be local restaurants.
With mandatory meal plans for students living on campus, Coates can provide students with a change of pace. The junior/senior meal plan provides students with strictly bonus bucks. Due to the lack of swipes, students on this meal plan may frequent Mabee Dining Hall less often. Restaurant variety in Coates provides students with different options for meals during the day. Alyssa Lagrone, junior psychology major, mentioned that she wishes to see more variety at the station.
“I love Singh’s, and they got rid of that. And so I was very sad because I used to eat it all the time,” Lagrone said. “I would love to see more food options, to be honest, more restaurants maybe to spice it up with something different, because sometimes they do have a lot of the more similar restaurants on rotation.”
Ming’s has been a consistent option at ToSA every three weeks this semester. Due to its reliability this year, it has become a student favorite. Leiana Coleman, first-year history major, said she enjoys going to Ming’s.
“I like it, it’s good. I like the bao buns. I think they’re my favorite,” Coleman said. “I think [ToSA] is pretty good across the board, maybe some variety would be nice, but I don’t know … I’m still experiencing getting to know what it is.”
With ToSA’s three-week rotation, they have Ming’s, the Wicked Wich and a Chartwells-specific option such as acai bowls, grilled cheese or philly cheesesteaks. Kristin Alderete, marketing director for dining services, added that the internal options are not local restaurants, but their inclusion at ToSA is from the dining feedback sessions and voice-to-vision surveys conducted in the fall by dining services.
“We take that feedback and try to improve the dining program,” Alderete said. “And that’s how we were able to add the acai bowl, the grilled cheese and the philly cheesesteak concepts to the Taste of San Antonio.”
For Singh’s and Alamo Biscuit Co. fans, the reason the restaurants aren’t at ToSA [this year] is not because Chartwells didn’t ask them to come back. Alderete mentioned that both restaurants chose to not return this semester.
“Unfortunately, Singh’s did have to withdraw at the last minute due to unforeseen circumstances,” Alderete said. “The door is still open to them for future opportunities, and the same with Alamo Biscuit, just they wrapped up their rotation with us, so that opens the door to new partnerships.”
For students who miss past restaurants at Coates, it’s not completely off the table to have some of these options return. Alderete emphasized student requests for local restaurants being a priority.
“We are open to revisiting the popular concepts, and we will try to prioritize the more local restaurants in order to give them an opportunity to kind of cross-promote,” Alderete said.
While the restaurants at ToSA have changed, the options are formed by the students who share feedback with the dining program. Alderete noted the efforts to involve students in filling out surveys.
“We want students to be heard, and really the biggest way we get that is through our surveys,” Alderete said. “Take it, because we do change a lot of the dining program and use it to improve based on those surveys.”
