The University of Central Floridas Student Union may be receiving a makeover in the upcoming years. University of Central Florida trustees are expected to vote on November 19th on whether or not the Student Unions food vendors should be consolidated and run by Aramark, a company that already runs UCFs meal- plan cafeterias ’63 South, and Knightros.
Most schools currently use single-food service operators like Aramark instead of several independent vendors. This makes the University of Central Florida the exception, because most of the vendors in the Student Union are either locally owned like Wackadoos- which is co- owned by Dean Monaco a 1993 UCF graduate and his former roomate Scott Kaylor, or the other restaurants are chains like Subway, which is run by 2007 UCF graduate Bryan Horgan.
The proposal for the consolidation of current food vendors into Aramark is supposed to be a lucrative deal for the University of Central Florida. The deal would give UCF an extra $14 million to expand the Student Union. The space currently seats 400, and the $14 million would build a new addition to the Union and would cause renovation to the existing space to add 750 more seats.
In the next few years several restaurant owners leases expire and they have said that their places will be phased out as they will not renew. Because of their non-renewals, Aramark would decide which vendors would replace them. This would wipe out all local restaurant owners and would turn the Student Union into a generic food court.
Aramark currently runs two on campus cafeterias, ’63 South, and Knightros. Along with our meal plans, Aramark runs the Student Unions at several other colleges like Florida State, University of Florida, and South Florida.