The soon-to-open Raising Cane’s at 63 S. Court St. has sparked questions about whether Ohio University students will be able to use meal swipes or Bobcat Cash to pay for food off campus.
University officials said the answer is no, citing financial, technical and logistical concerns with allowing off-campus vendors into the meal plan system.
“At this point, I don’t think it makes financial sense to the university,” Frank Pazzanese, executive director of OU Culinary Services, said. “If we let someone like Cane’s or Chipotle take that money, we don’t get anything from it. They don’t give the university anything.”
Pazzanese said off-campus partnerships could undercut the funding that supports student workers and union employees.
“Our employees at the university, we pay them, and we usually pay about 1,600 students,“ Pazzanese said. "We have close to 200 union employees. We can’t guarantee that the university’s money will go to that with another vendor.”
Pazzanese also said the money the university makes from on-campus dining sites eventually gets cycled not only back to student employees, but to the city of Athens itself.
Don Jackson, director of business operations of OU Culinary Services, said the technical aspects required to allow meal swipes at restaurants like Cane’s would also be expensive.
“I know it sounds easy that somebody outside can take a meal swipe, but think about the technical aspects of it,” Jackson said. “They would have to have our point of sale system. There’s a tremendous cost with going into an outside vendor and having to do that as well.”
Even if those challenges were solved, Pazzanese said expanding the meal plan to off-campus dining would make the plans too costly for students.
“We would have to either raise the rate of the meal plan or have a special meal plan that we raise rates on,” Pazzanese said.
He also said large chains may not be interested in such partnerships if not enough students opt in.
Jackson added that, unlike OU-run dining locations, profits from a Raising Cane’s would leave the community.
“If there’s a Raising Cane's on campus that the university runs, where do you think those profits they make go?” Jackson said. "They go to the corporate office of Raising Cane's, and everything we do goes right back into the university."
Still, Pazzanese said Culinary Services anticipated the arrival of chains like Cane’s or Chick-fil-A and responded with its own concept, Earl’s Coop.
“We knew that eventually Cane's or Chick-fil-A would come to town,“ Pazzanese said. "That’s why we came up with Earl’s Coop."
Pazzanese also said he enjoys the thrill of the competition that the new Raising Cane's will bring.
“I’m a big fan of competition,“ Pazzanese said. "I think it only makes us want to do more … It’s one of those things where if it’s a good item, it just spurs competition."
Autumn Ryder, director of residential dining of OU Culinary Services, believes the quality of the food from Earl's Coop is comparable, if not better, than Raising Cane's.
“We want to make sure that we’re still able to provide an equal service and an equal product,” Ryder said. “When we compare it to our Earl's Coop, I think it’s very comparable: the chicken, we have the fries, the service, all the different side options. And really, we have a little bit more than what Cane's does.”
Ryder also emphasized the variety already available to students through on-campus dining.
“You could go to a different venue every single meal and not have the same thing an entire week,” Ryder said.
