Retail Policy

Overhead, in the retail locations our costs are much different than in the dining halls. We are required to purchase take out containers, cups, lids, plastic forks, knives, spoons, plastic bags and pay royalties and/or rent.

Here is an example as to how our costs are broken down if you paid $14 for your meal swipe. In the food service industry, expenses are broken down into four parts: 30 percent is the cost of food, 30 percent is the cost of labor, 30 percent is fixed expenses (utilities, rent, etc..) which leaves 10 percent for capital improvement (upgrades, repairs and renovations).

If our plate cost for your meal is $4.20, which includes your center of the plate item, side, beverage, plastic, paper goods and condiments, then we need to allocate $4.20 to Labor and $4.20 to fixed expenses, which would, leave only $1.40 for capital improvements.

Ultimately, the biggest bang for your buck is in the dining hall because of the “all you care to eat option” which we are able to do because of the economy of scale and not having the expenses associated with retail operations.

We do not have enough store room space or refrigerator space to accommodate the amount of product required for “grocery shopping”. Rutgers Dining Services used to allow students to swipe for anything they wanted up to the value of their meal swipe, but this resulted in constant outages, warm beverage items and an overall poor experience for our students.

Currently, Rutgers Dining Services serves over 30,000 meals every day with a large amount of that coming from our retail locations. Our retail units were designed for 25 percent of the volume they are experiencing. We are striving to better serve you on a daily basis and will be opening more retail locations for you to use with your meal plan in the future.

Three (3) total meal swipes per day is permitted across all retail/dining hall takeout operations.

You are always welcome to eat in the dining halls as often as you choose.