The layout and routing of the cafeteria is far from perfect, there are not enough cash registers and seats, and basic products like soup sell out too fast. Mark van den Brand, professor in Software Engineering and Technology, aptly sums up what he feels is the matter with the MetaForum cafeteria. “Anyone with half a catering brain should realize this just doesn’t work. The vice-dean hasn’t called Internal Affairs of Eurest catering yet. For now, he chooses to avoid the cafeteria in ‘his’ building altogether, especially afternoons. And he knows he’s not the only one at Mathermatics & Computer Science, either.

The MetaForum cafeteria caters to twelve to fifteen hundred visitors every day on average. “That’s an awful lot for a location that small”, says Monique Kuyck, head of Operational Services at Internal Affairs.

Kuyck says the increased crowds, at all TU/e cafeterias by the way, are mostly a result of the growing student population. And cafeterias aren’t the only locations on campus suffering from that. “Study areas and offices have become a little more cramped. The university has to make do with fewer square meters per capita.” Kuyck hopes part of the cafeteria clientele will purchase their lunches at Flux, when the new building opens its cafeteria in January. Around the same time, the catering at Laplace will reopen too - it’s currently closed for renovation.

Be that as it may, Internal Affairs has been thinking of ways to relieve the MetaForum cafeteria for a while now. The most promising plan thus far is “a type of mobile store” Eurest and TU/e want to put up around MetaForum: a luxury trailer that sells a limited selection of food such as soups and sandwiches. Whether external parties will be allowed to offer their food from this trailer or not, Kuyck isn’t sure, “but it’s all arranged through our caterer”.