A New Student’s Perspective: Talk of closing diner serves up debate

By Nadine Tester

My first thought about the Bronc Diner was that it wasn’t aptly named. “Diners serve coffee,” I remember telling my friend Alex, “and they’re bussed by angry, gum-popping waitresses who serve everything on chipped plates.”

The Bronc Diner is more of an assembly line deli, where it’s a crapshoot about how long it will take you to get your food. I’ve waited anywhere from 15 minutes to an hour and half for a plate of cheese fries. Whether it’s crowded or not never seems to matter.

Recently, there’s been a lot of talk about closing down the diner and extending Cranberry’s, the luncheonette-type restaurant, to open late at night. I think that there are a lot of arguments either way.

Mostly, when people are told that the diner is going to be closed down, their immediate reaction is blind fear and anger: Cranberry’s is too far away, it’s more expensive, the food is too good to eat at night, etc.

For me, the only real complaint I would have about moving the late night eating joint into the BLC is that it’s more of a walk. Most of the residence halls are located closer to the dining hall with the exception of Poyda. For the majority of people, after a night of studying, partying or sleeping, a closer walk to feed the midnight munchies is important.

Also, Cranberry’s is a nice place to eat. When my family comes here and they want to sample the campus food, I’m not going to subject them to Daly’s or make them sit in the diner; I would rather bring them to Cranberry’s. The furniture is nicer, the lighting is better and the layout easy is to maneuver. In general, it’s just more pleasant to eat in.

If the late night dining were switched from the Bronc Diner to Cranberry’s, the latter would not look even remotely as clean, new or welcoming as it does right now. There would be a constant stream of people in there, night and day. People are going to complain that it’s too far of a walk, but they’re still going to be hungry come midnight.

The number of people always coming and going would wear down the new furniture and generally friendly atmosphere. Cranberry’s would begin to look more and more like the Bronc Diner; it would be subjected to more vandalism.

At Cranberry’s it would be easy to notice the minute a chair is out of place, or a muddy pair of shoes are trudged across the floor.

In my mind, there is just no real reason to close the diner and open up Cranberry’s at night. The diner gets a lot of business as it is, and having more choices to eat isn’t going to make profits go up. People like Bronc Diner food, or at the very least, they don’t care how good the food tastes late at night.

If Rider wants to change something about its late-night dining, it should just speed up the waiting time at the Bronc Diner. This would generate a very happy, albeit tired, late night crowd.

Sometimes it’s the little things that count, and if keeping the diner open means a shorter walk for me to get cheese fries at midnight, I would definitely take it over Cranberry’s any day or night.