- Campus , Sports
- 22/08/2024
Significant work on the Student Sports Center (SSC) began as early as 2022. The building and almost all of the sports facilities have been overhauled, from the reception area to the gym and the Spinning Theater. To top it all off, the brand spanking new Sports Café opened this week. After all, the SSC isn’t only there to play sports but also to get together and have a nice drink or snack.
Full kitchen with chef
“One of the most important new features is that we now have a professional kitchen,” says Joyce Schonenburg, hospitality manager at the SSC. The availability of kitchen appliances was much more limited before. “We did have a deep fryer, toaster sandwich maker and oven, of course, but we couldn’t prepare any full-fledged meals on the spot. Now we can really cook,” continues Laurens Eliëns, logistics manager at the Sports Café. Professional chef Yanick Sanches will be running the Sports Café kitchen from now on. “Pretty much everything is being made to order and we are very mindful of dietary requirements, offering vegetarian, gluten-free, and halal options.”
In addition to the familiar items from the old menu – such as sandwiches, curd, and snacks from the deep fryer – many new ones can be ordered as of now. These include fresh smoothies, protein shakes, fresh soups and stews, pastry from the local baking shop, salads, and hot evening meals.
Affordable evening meals
“We noticed an increasing demand for hot meals. Someone even forwarded a Cursor article on the topic to us, so we decided to incorporate this demand,” says Schonenburg. The menu currently features four hot meals: ‘Roasted Chicken Thigh Tandoori’, ‘Fish Plate’, ‘Roasted Mushroom Lasagne’, and a weekly special. These can be ordered from Monday thru Friday between 4:30 and 9 pm, at prices ranging from €7.90 to €8.50. This makes having an affordable dinner on campus a little bit easier again.
To make sure the overhauled menu would meet the demands of the visitors, short questionnaires were sent out to those frequenting the SSC. “At the entrance of the Sports Center, we have ‘Charlie’, a touch screen that we can load or own questions onto. It’s like a digital idea box,” Schonenburg explains. “One thing we asked is what should be preserved from our own menu; the Turkish pizzas, nachos, and salmon sandwich turned out to be the crowd favorites. And the first weekly special was also chosen by our visitors through Charlie.”
Twice as much seating
As the Sports Café was starting to burst at the seams a little bit, the renovation was also meant to increase the number of seats. “Before we had around 80 inside seats and now we have over 150,” says Schonenburg. So that’s almost double. “That was really necessary. Friday nights in particular it would be packed out in here, to the point where you’d stumble over all of the bags. It was really becoming a problem.” The number of seats in the outside seating area belonging to the Sports Café will also be roughly doubled in the future.
Accessible for everyone
The SSC and the Sports Café used to share an entrance. This regularly presented issues because you needed a sports subscription to enter the sports section, but you didn’t need one if you were just visiting the Café. This made it difficult for the receptionists to check if people without a sports subscription were sneaking into the sports areas from the Café. “The separate entrance is a very big plus. It makes it easier for the receptionists, but also for visitors to the Café.” Thanks to the separate entrances, the overhauled outside seating area (to be realized) will no longer be cordoned off, so you’ll be able to pick a spot right away.
Schonenburg emphasizes that the Sports Café is really there for all campus users. “So many people walk by here during the day. We hope this makes it just that little bit easier for everyone to drop in for a cup of coffee or lunch, or even to do some work.”
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