The white fences that once contained a twisting line of hungry
students at Campus Corner have been unusually empty this week as
Shorty’s Subs finishes its first week of operations following
the recent contract termination and departure of Taco Bell.
Despite the loss of Taco Bell, once the second-most popular
eatery on campus with about 1,000 customers a day, officials say
the new sandwich eatery is doing well.
“The subs are selling better there than they were in the
Cooperage,” said Roy Champawat, restaurants director for the
Associated Students of UCLA. “At the same time, that is
certainly less than Taco Bell was doing at that
location.”
Some students said the increase in prices was the main deterrent
from dining at the new sandwich venue.
“(Taco Bell) was a lot more inexpensive than this
place,” said Juan Pedroza, a fourth-year geology student who
was visiting the eatery for the first time since the changeover.
“I’m paying three times as much as I was paying when
Taco Bell was here.”
“It seems that the service has changed. It takes longer
for them to prepare the food,” Pedroza added.
Champawat said there was only one week between the ASUCLA
board’s decision and the termination of Taco Bell’s
contract, leaving very little time to move Shorty’s, which
had previously been located in the Cooperage on Ackerman’s
A-level.
Taco Bell was removed from campus by the ASUCLA board of
directors following a student outcry over allegations of unfair
labor practices by the company’s tomato suppliers.
The move came at an appropriate time as the ASUCLA Food Service
Master Plan ““ long-term plans to renovate existing eateries
on Ackerman’s A-level and elsewhere on campus ““ is
“still in evolution,” Champawat said.
That master plan could involve shutting down the Campus Corner
location or upgrading Shorty’s, as well as a complete
renovation of the Cooperage dining room to incorporate new
restaurants.
Mucho Taco, an ASUCLA-run Mexican food eatery, has taken the
place of Shorty’s Subs in the Cooperage and has been
successful in its first week. The taco restaurant was selling
better this week than Shorty’s had at the same location in
the past, Champawat said.
“For the long term, we will have to see,” said
Champawat of the fate of the Campus Corner location.
For some students, the convenience of the location is the draw
to Shorty’s.
Andrew Park, a fourth-year ethnomusicology and history student,
said he usually goes to check the lines for the restaurants in
Ackerman first.
“You come out here and the lines aren’t long, and it
goes very quickly,” Park said.
Dean Pak, a fourth-year molecular, cell and developmental
biology student, also commented on the quick service at
Shorty’s but said it might change if the location becomes
popular.
“If this starts picking up, it’s going to be just as
bad (as the venues in Ackerman),” Pak said, also adding he
would probably continue to patronize the new eatery in the
future.
“You get kind of tired eating Rubio’s and
Sbarro’s up on A-level. So once in a while you come out
here,” Pak said.
Champawat said adding more flexibility and different options is
one of the goals of the new ASUCLA master plan for the A-level
eateries.
Champawat added that some of those changes might start with
ASUCLA’s student advisory group, which allows students’
voices to be utilized in changes to campus restaurants.