Year in Review, Fall: Elm Street Renovations Revealed

After a summer away, students arrived back at Exeter in the fall to find a newly renovated Elm Street dining hall awaiting their arrival. The dining services felt that, compared to the modernized dining facilities in other academic institutions, Exeter’s were outdated, and should be revamped. The new dining hall was almost unrecognizable with its modern flooring, new lighting in the eating area, reconfigured dish room, newly designed service stations and  brick pizza oven. The “scatter system” configuration of the new-and-improved Elm Street was designed to reduce the traffic during rush hours so that all of the students, faculty and staff could eat without a substantial wait. Some Elm street regulars enjoy the new pizza oven and the dazzling modern architecture, while others believe the renovation was unnecessary and that the money could have instead been used to improve the food. To many, the traffic in the dining hall seems to have increased, defeating the purpose of the renovations. But overall, students and faculty believe that Elm Street’s renovations resulted in an enhanced dining space for the Academy community.