Bistro Off Broadway adds dining option at New York university

CORTLAND, N.Y. — “Just like at home, the students will get a variety of healthy food at the best value and in a convenient location,” said William McNamara, director of dining services for the SUNY Cortland Auxiliary Services Corporation (ASC), which handles campus dining operations.

The Bistro, a 350-seat residential dining facility, is the first area to open its doors in the newly constructed, $56 million, 150,000-square-foot Student Life Center off Pashley Drive. The approximately 13,000-square-foot dining annex is scheduled to open to students returning for spring semester on Friday, Jan. 23. The facility will celebrate with the entire campus community during a grand opening on Wednesday, Jan. 28.

The Bistro becomes the second residential “all-you-care-to eat” — as opposed to retail-style — dining hall on campus, joining Neubig, located in Neubig Hall. For the 2,700 students getting their meals on campus, the operation brings the total number of large, dining hall seats to 680 and addresses a demand students had expressed on an ASC survey that more meal-time seats be made available.

The new, state-of-the-art campus dining locale will feature a cooking demonstration area and numerous on-site food preparation stations. Students will be offered a different approach to purchasing on-campus dining, called “unlimited access residential meal plans.”

“You come and go all day long, as many times as you want all day,” McNamara said, describing the meal plan at Neubig and The Bistro.

Whether they pick the Platinum Plus option for $2,390 during the Spring 2015 semester at the higher end of the four meal plan choices or the more budget-conscious Copper Plus meal plan for $1,990 that semester, students can eat as much and as often as they need at the two residential style dining halls during open hours and not worry about running out of weekly meals.

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